HIGH Wycombe CC are celebrating their sixth Home Counties Premier League title in 11 years this morning.

They beat Welwyn Garden City on Saturday to wrap up the title with one match still to spare.

Captain Matthew Eyles said: “We’ve finally sealed the deal. It was the perfect performance at just the right time.

“We lost the toss, which wasn’t an ideal start, but we bowled superbly.”

Jamie Benning was the match-winners with six wickets as Welwyn were dismissed for 149, and although Wycombe lost six wickets hunting them down the result wasn’t ever in any real doubt.

Eyles said: “It was a good wicket. It turned a bit but nothing serious and 250 was probably a par score.

“But Jamie finally got a bit of reward because he’s been bowling superbly for a month, and as a unit we bowled superbly.

“We did lose six wickets ourselves, but we wanted to get the runs as quickly as possible – you don’t want to take it to the last game with so much rain about – so we took a few more risks than normal.”

The victory was Wycombe’s tenth out of 14 matches completed and means if they beat Potters Bar at home in their final fixture of the season they’ll end the year with a record points total.

Eyles said: “I think it’s a testament to the way the club has gone about it.

“Banbury have really kicked on in the second half of the season, but I think we have been the best team and with a bit less rain could have secured more wins.

“We play attacking cricket and do win a lot of matches.

“We very rarely use up all our overs when we’re batting and leave ourselves plenty of time to bowl sides out.

“I suppose we’re an example to other teams.”

Wycombe’s title follows their previous league triumphs of 2002, 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2011.

Eyles said: “I was around in the Jason Harrison era, when we had players who were the complete club professionals.

“I think here at the moment we’ve got a lot of unfulfilled potential skill, which is exciting in a different way.

“We do attract good players to the club, but we also develop youngsters and give them their chance – as we’ve shown this year.

“Sohail [Hussain] has established himself as one of the leading strike bowlers in the league, Nick Robinson is starting to emerge, even David Cranfield-Thompson is only 23, 24...

“And I can assure you there are a few more coming through already. Youngsters that are 15 or 16 are pushing hard for the first team in the next couple of years.

“It does bode very well for us going forward.”