The students of Oxford MCC Universities gave county champions Warwickshire a mighty fright before falling to a narrow 21-run defeat in The Parks yesterday.

Oxford set up the chance of rare win over a first-class county by dismissing the Midlanders for 133 in their second innings.

This left the students a target of 155.

Things looked bleak when Tom Milnes blasted through the early batting to leave the hosts struggling at 13-4.

But a fifth-wicket stand of 95 between Banbury opening batsman Lloyd Sabin and Ben Williams put Oxford in sight of a famous triumph.

Sabin put his first-innings golden duck behind him to make a battling 50 off 106 balls with seven sweetly-timed fours.

At 108-4, the odds were on a shock result.

But when Williams, who made 41 and Sabin both fell at that total, the innings went into a rapid decline.

When skipper Charles Morris was last out at 1331, his side were still 22 runs short of their target.

His batsmen had been blown aside by seamer Milnes who returned super figures of 7-39 to spare the blushes of his colleagues.

After the first day of this three-day match, the county seemed to be heading for a big victory, having declared their first innings at 293-9 and then reduced the students to 2-2.

But a superb century from opener Sam Agarwal held the innings together.

Agarwal struck 12 fours while making 108 – his second first-class century – to help Oxford to within 23 runs of the Warwickshire total.

The county’s surprising second-innings collapse was initiated by Morris who took three top-order wickets for 33 in 15 accurate overs.

He was well supported by Charles Ellison – son of former Kent and England bowler Richard Ellison – Ben Kemp and Cornelis Bodenstein.