JACK Davies held his nerve to lead Berkshire to a dramatic one-wicket win over Staffordshire in their Minor Counties Championship final at Banbury.

He carried his bat throughout the 183-minute innings as Berks scrambled to 97-9, finishing on 42 which came off 103 balls and included five boundaries.

Last month, Berkshire had won the MCCA Trophy by beating Cumberland by one run at Wormsley.

No wonder then, that the club's supporters have finished another incredibly successful season with no finger nails left.

Berkshire – now unbeaten for five years in the championship – looked to be in danger of seeing that long run ended when Eastern Division Staffordshire reduced them to 63-7.

But Chris Peploe (15) and Tom Nugent (13) helped the immensely-patient Davies to edge the score along with valuable runs. Both were trapped lbw by Tim Maxfield, as was Luke Beaven (4).

The ninth wicket went down at 87, with seamer Maxfield taking seven of the wickets. He finished with career-best figures of 20.2-1-48-7.

With the support of last man Mungo Russell, Davies managed to whittle down the runs, striking a boundary and taking a single off the same bowler to level the scores. He then clinched victory in a remarkable low-scoring final.

Russell survived for 21 minutes in scoring two.

Berkshire’s win equalled Devon’s record of four successive Championships and gave them their seventh national title in four seasons to go with four Western Division crowns.

Over the two-and-a-half days, the bowlers enjoyed considerably more success the batsmen.

Berkshire’s Richard Morris in the first innings, made 89, while Davies was the only other batsman to top 30.

Morris was voted man-of-the-match, just edging out Davies, who also took a total of eight catches, five of them in the Staffordshire second innings when they were skittled out for 110.

In total, there were 13 lbws in the match, 11 of them against Berkshire.

On a green wicket, the ball also beat the bat on numerous occasions with the pacemen getting plenty of movement over the course of the game.

Berkshire chairman Neil Doody said: "This was a remarkable conclusion to another amazing season for the county. To think we won the 50 overs final by one run and now the championship by one wicket, it simply could not be bettered.

"These two close results, once again underline the fact the team always shows committed resilience to finally see us over the line.

"We owe a great deal of gratitude to all the players and our excellent coaching team of Tom Lambert and Stewart Davison, as well as our back-up staff."