DEVON captain Bob Dawson was never worried about losing the Minor Counties Championship final against Buckinghamshire at Exmouth, even when his bowlers were being clouted around on the last day of the match.

   Dawson set Bucks 308 to win in what would have been a minimum of 60 overs – and Bucks went off at a cracking pace to reach 80 without loss in the first 15 of them. Never mind being up with the asking rate, Bucks were steaming on ahead of it.

   The game changed when Dawson turned to his spinners, Arwyn Jones and Andy Procter, who bowled Bucks out for 127 with at least eight overs to come.

   Jones led the way with seven for 32 while Procter had two for 32 at the other end including the final wicket of last man Simon Stanway to win the match.

   Dawson (pictured left receiving the winners' shield from MCCA president Peter Gooden) said he always had confidence in his bowlers, although even he didn't expect Bucks to collapse as dramatically as they did.

   “I wasn't worried about Bucks getting on with it – in fact it probably did us a favour as it kept them interested,” said Dawson.

   “There was no reason to worry anyway as I the spinners would turn the ball on that wicket and we have the bowlers to exploit it.

   “Once they lost a couple of wickets and chose to shut up shop we were never going to lose it – and I felt we had enough overs left to get them out.

   “Without wishing to sound arrogant I knew we had it in the bag when their left hander Matt Eyles was out lbw playing no shot. That was 106 for six with 30 overs to go and with all the people we had round the bat they were never going to hang on.”

   When Procter induced last man Stanway into deflecting the ball on to his stumps, Devon had won the title with a perfect record of seven wins from seven starts. It was not only a first for Devon, but a first for the competition.

   Looking back at the season Dawson said it wasn't long before he realised Devon were in with a great chance of winning the Western Division and earning another crack at the outright title.

   He was always confident it could be done and the longer the season went on the more confident he became.

   “As early as the second game, when we won away to Berkshire, I was quietly confident and after we beat Herefordshire at Torquay I was convinced,” said Dawson.

   “It's always hard to get a result at Torquay because it's difficult to bowl sides out. Andy Procter comes up with 12 wickets in the match – what a great performance that was – and a couple of other results went our way as well.

   “We didn't have a bad day's cricket in our last three games against Shropshire, Cornwall then Wales, although by then we had won it anyway. If we did have a bad session, we bounced back straight away, just as we did in the final.

   “Bucks had just shaded it at the end of the first day, but in the first hour on the second we were right back in it thanks to ‘Procks' and ‘Jonesy'. Whenever a performance was needed, like Trevor Anning's innings against Shropshire when we had lost too many wickets too quickly, someone came up with one.”

   Procter, with 43 wickets at less than 21 runs each will be an odds-on candidate for the Minor Counties Bowling award this season, the Frank Edwards Trophy.

   Hancock's 799 runs are more than any other Minor Counties batsman this season. Only Lincolnshire's Vikram Atri (714) is within a 100 of the Paignton big hitter. However, there are eight players above Hancock in the batting averages – all of them with fewer runs but a large proportion of not outs.

   In Devon' last three games Hancock scored four hundreds, a 50 and a 95. No wonder the First Class counties are sniffing round him again with Warwickshire and Derbyshire both thought to be interested.

   “I've never had a season as good as this and it's going to be hard to improve on it next year,” said Hancock, who was named man of the match in the final for his knocks of 95 and 139.

    If Hancock was man of the match and Procter man of the season then man of the moment in the final was easily Plympton spinner Jones.

   Jones missed the first four games of the season for family reasons and had to be talked into playing by skipper Dawson. The gentlemanly potter from Modbury didn't want to take a place from someone who had held it all season and done nothing wrong.

   Dawson's argument then was if you want to win things you put out your best team adding: “And our best team is one with Arwyn Jones in it.”

   How right he was. Jones produced new career best bowling figures for Devon in the final, easily eclipsing the five for 26 that helped beat Berkshire at Finchampstead in 2003 and win that season's Western Division title.

   Sticky-fingered catching close to the wicket helped – Hancock pouched three in the slips and David Court took a reaction catch at silly point – as did a decent line and length that had the Bucks' batters lunging at balls which kept moving away from them.

   For Jones it was a case of third time lucky as he had played in two previous Championship finals for Devon and not been a winner.

   “Not only that, I didn't take a wicket in either of them so this game was extra special in many ways,” added Jones.

   “I had my best figures for ages – I couldn't even tell you the last time if ever that I took seven wickets in an innings – and we won.

   “Now it's over I can look at the game and feel I have really contributed to us winning the game.

   “I can't tell you what sort of glow that us, other than to say it is the same sort of feeling I had when my first child was born. It is that sort of elation. I am going to bask in it as long as I can. At my age I probably won't get too many more chances.”

   For the statistically minded, Hancock was followed in the batting averages by David Court (372 runs, 53.14 average),then Chris Mole (396/49.50), Dawson (461/41.90) and Richard Foan (400/40.00). Rob Gear and Robert Woodman both averaged 40 or more, but only played in four matches between them.

   Trevor Anning (22 wickets at 22.45 runs each) was second in the bowling averages. Other leading wicket takers were Jones (13/26.69) and Ian Bishop (16/28.93).