High Wycombe kept their title dreams alive with a convincing five-wicket victory against reigning champions Henley at London Road on Saturday.

The visitors had been in imperious form to start the season, winning their opening eight matches, but they saw their 100 per cent record fall to second place Wycombe.

In the build-up to the match Hawkes had said his side’s title challenge would have been effectively ended with a defeat, but he was left with a spring in his step after his side chased down 220 to secure an all important win.

“We needed to win to keep the league alive and we did,” said the Wycombe skipper.

“To beat the in-form team by five wickets in 41 overs sets the mark on how we want to play our cricket to the rest of the teams that we’re going to play against this season.

“After the build-up and speaking to the lads around the club, Saturday was the biggest game of the season so far.

“If we’d have lost that then we were definitely out of the running, but we beat them convincingly. There’s no holding back now and we can beat any team home or away with the side and squad that we’ve got.”

The hosts recovered well from a nervy start to the run chase as openers Adam Hose (5) and Gavin Baker (8) fell early on to leave their side in trouble at 26-2.

Adam Dobb went for 20 and wicketkeeper George Russell managed just four as Henley looked to seize the advantage with Wycombe reduced top 64-4, but it was a superb innings from Hawkes which took the game away from them.

The 26-year-old hit his third century of the season, finishing unbeaten on 112 as he guided his side over the line with support from Paul Sawyer (31) and Alan Duncan (30*).

Earlier on in the day, the home team’s bowlers had laid the foundations for victory as they bowled Henley out for the first time this season, with the spin duo of Dobb (4-37) and Kyle Simmonds (3-56) doing the majority of the damage.

The former, who is in his second spell for the club after moving down from Nottingham, was only playing after a calf strain ruled James Benning out of the match but he fitted in seamlessly as they reduced Henley to 220 all out from 61.3 overs.

“They’re very top heavy with the batting and if you get the two openers out then we always thought we had a chance against them,” explained Hawkes.

“Their main bowler, Tahir Afridi, didn’t bowl so well against us – probably because not many teams in the league have a batting line-up as strong as ours. It was quite nice to be on the front foot.

“Early on in the season we struggled to bowl teams out, both in the one-dayers and when we moved to the longer version, but we got ten convincing wickets on Saturday.

“The spinners bowled well and it was the best, by far, all round performance that we’ve had with the ball.”

Henley took away just eight points from the fixture, allowing Wycombe, who took the maximum 25, to close the gap at the top to 22 points.

With the second half of the season getting under-way with a home tie against Burnham on Saturday, Hawkes is approaching the remaining games with a renewed hope that his side can win the title.

“We looked at them after the game and they looked disappointed and stuff after they had been pretty upbeat during the day,” he said.

“It was quite nice to chalk up a loss on their board and hopefully it will dent a bit of their confidence going into a game against Slough in a couple of weeks and then Banbury. Hopefully one of those teams can do us a favour.”