Somerset CC (Rangers won toss): Willow Cuts beat Rangers by three runs.

Willow Cuts pulled off the closest win in the Logic Premier Division this season, when a brilliant one-handed catch at slip by Dean Stephens sealed a dramatic victory against their Western Counties rivals.

Cuts were dismissed for 157 and then kept their opponents to 154 after they, too, had a mid-innings slump.

The match was marred by controversy when a mid-crease verbal exchange between Chris Douglas, the Willow Cuts batsman, and Dion Stovell, the Southampton Rangers captain, early in the Rangers innings threatened to boil over as umpire Craig Brangman stepped in and removed the bails at his end to allow the incident to simmer.

Initially it appeared that the Cuts players walked off the field in protest, but Malachi Jones, the team’s captain, denied that, saying that a water break was called by the umpires to cool things down.

“It was a little jeering going on between Chris Douglas and Dion Stovell and they came together at the crease and exchanged a few words and the umpire decided to calm things down by sending us off the field for a water break,” Jones said.

“He flicked the bails off and said ‘I’m not taking this’, when you are ready to play cricket come back. We took it among ourselves to take the water break and regroup and come back. It’s always a battle between Rangers and Cuts because we don’t like losing to each other so that energy is always going to be there.

“Sometimes it can get a bit personal but never to the point where it is going to be a fight.”

Dexter Basden, the Willow Cuts manager, also denied that his team walked off the field. “The umpire said ‘take a water break, get a breather and let them come back out’,” said Basden, a former Cuts captain.

“Then he came down and said it was time, lets get back out on the field and our troops went back on the field. When it comes to Rangers and Willow Cuts it’s always a very competitive game and it showed in the end with a good game of cricket. We showed character to come back from being down.

“It’s a good team, we just need work on the mental side sometimes.”

Tension was still high after the resumption at 39 for two when, in the first over from Kavon Fubler, Stovell drove the ball back down the crease, Fubler picked it up and threw it at the stumps, only for the ball to go away for four.

The introduction in the attack of Douglas only added to the drama as Stovell set into him, smashing him for a few boundaries as Douglas went for 25 in his two overs, including 20 in his second over to bring up his 50 as Douglas was taken off the ball.

In the next over Malachi Jones trapped Alex Dore lbw to end a stand of 80 with his captain which carried the score to 110, but the match began to swing in Cuts favour when, in the following over, Shaquille Jones, who replaced Douglas, got Stovell’s wicket when he pulled a short ball to midwicket and, ironically, Douglas held the catch above his head.

Wickets fell regularly after that with Janeiro Tucker falling to a catch on the long-on boundary by Ricardo Brangman to make it 120 for five. Two stands of 17 and 15 kept Rangers slightly in control but it changed for them when Shannon Raynor was run out trying to force a second run after sweeping a delivery from 14-year-old Joseph Basden — Dexter’s son — to the square leg boundary. He was halfway down the crease when Rohaan Simons sent him back.

Rangers were just six runs from victory when Raynor was seventh out for knock of 20 and three more wickets fell for just two runs as Cuts secured an unexpected.

Simons was dramatically dismissed for ‘obstructing a fielder’ in the next ball when he popped up the ball on the legside and then obstructed wicketkeeper Chris Foggo as he tried to take the catch.

Deunte Darrell took a wicket on the last ball of his only over when he had Derrick Brangman caught behind and then three balls later Vernon Eve edged a delivery from the returning Kamal Bashir where Stephens took a low catch to seal the win.

Stovell led the Rangers batting with 61 off 43 balls with nine fours and a six as Malachi Jones and left-arm spinner Shaquille Jones took three wickets apiece for 36 and 22.

Earlier Shaquille Jones was high scorer with 38 off 43 balls while Douglas, who put on 43 for the first wicket with Chris Foggo, scored 26 off six fours and Sheroy Fubler 24 during a ninth wicket stand of 27 with Bashir. Four Rangers players took two wickets apiece.