The hosts were pummelled, losing by an innings and 203 runs, the result also locking Ox-Cents into yet another finals campaign, their ninth in a row.

Across two innings, only three Blayney batsmen made more than 10 and, after showing signs that their reliance on Imran and Jameel Qureshi was beginning to subside, the absence of the classy left-handers couldn’t have been more painfully felt.

On the flipside, Ox-Cents captain Josh Toole had a field day, smashing 144 on day one as Ox-Cents cantered to 5-300 declared, and it was a mark of his sheer dominance that his side were only on 199 when he fell.

“It was pretty one-sided obviously, as the scorecard suggests. It has looked like Blayney might have been starting to get away from having the Qureshi boys make all their runs, but they missed them a lot in this match,” he said.

“From our point of view, it was exactly the result we needed. It puts a bit of distance between us and the likes of Rugby and ORC and from here we’d have to make some big mistakes to miss the semis.

“It was good to get some more runs. Andrew Brown and I have had some good partnerships this season and I think we work pretty well together. He’s a very steady opening partner to have and just works the ball into gaps and does his job.”

Twenty fours and five sixes filled out Toole’s knock, meaning 116 of his runs came in boundaries.

It was brutal, and it was swift.

His side motored along at close to a run a ball until he was finally dismissed in the 39th over.

In reality, Blayney actually did reasonably well with the ball thereafter to take 5-101, but the damage had been done.

Brown made 41, Troy Kenny hit an entertaining 51 not out, and none of the bowlers escaped punishment.

It didn’t help that Blayney’s quickest bowler, Pirenu Nirmalendran, had to leave the field with an injury after four overs.

After 67 overs Toole had seen enough, and by stumps the game was as good as over.

Of the Blayney bowlers, Dave Rogerson toiled hard to finish with 2-112 off 24 overs, while Mac Gosewich took 3-74 but was expensive, going at 7.4 an over.

In the brief session before stumps, the 10-man Blayney line-up slumped to 6-27.

Nick Bird (15) and Andrew Ryan (12) were the only players to make it to double-figures.

Things wrapped up quickly yesterday morning and they were all-out for just 37.

Aaron Seymour’s fine run of form continued as he took 6-12 off 11 overs, proving virtually unplayable.

He put Ricky Daymond’s otherwise fine figures of 3-22 off 10 in the shade.

Following on, Blayney were in similar trouble from the fourth over onwards.

They limped to 70, Bird’s 11 proving the top-score in a shattering effort.

Jem Nash claimed 4-28, while Seymour took another two wickets to go with his bag from the first innings.

“I don’t know what the answer is for Blayney, they didn’t have a lot of luck with Pirenu getting injured, he’s probably their other standout player besides Imran and Jameel, and to bowl for that long without someone like that is tough,” Toole said.

“But we were happy to get maximum points and now we can play with a bit less pressure on us for the next couple of rounds.”