Buckinghamshire’s Seconds finally got their Servent Over 60s Championship campaign underway with a one run victory over Kent Seconds.

The success owed much to the nerveless bowling of Terry Bentley who took two wickets in the final over of the match as Bucks held on for victory.

Bucks’ first two games of the season had fallen victim to the rain and they were eager to get their season up and running ahead of Thursday’s match.

They have finished bottom in their last two campaigns and would need to upset the odds if they were to come away with a positive result against an unbeaten Kent side.

They would be up against it almost immediately after Kent won the toss and opted to put their opponents into bat on a wicket which had been subjected to heavy rainfall.

An early wicket looked to be vindication of their decision, but Bucks were in no mood to lie down and accept defeat as a battling 53 from John Rolfe helped them recover.

Brian Ralph (20), John Pothecary (57 not out) and Larry Warr (28) also played important roles in the Bucks batting effort as they finished on 177-5 from 45 overs.

The total was by no means unachievable and Bucks would require a solid bowling performance to stand any chance of winning.

A strong start from Jim Spooner and Dave Burton allowed them to limit Kent’s scoring early on before Richard Vasey, Roger Garrini and Bentley continued the theme of controlled bowling.

Spooner and Warr had a particularly big impact as the latter took a stunning catch off the bowling of the former in the penultimate over to remove a big-hitting Kent batsman.

The solid bowling performance ensured the game was kept on a knife edge throughout to leave Kent needing six runs off the last over with four wickets remaining.

Things got off to a shaky start for Bentley as his first delivery was unceremoniously dispatched to the boundary for four.

Kent now needed two to win from five deliveries and looked certain to cash in on their third win on the bounce.

Instead, some sharp fielding prevented a single and Bentley snared another Kent batsman LBW in the next two balls.

Another dot followed before Bentley bowled the Kent captain to leave them needing two to win from the final delivery of the innings.

Bentley stepped up confidently to bowl another dot ball and complete the most remarkable of final overs to seal victory.