Having won the toss Henley had no hesitation in inserting our First Team on a fresh green top wicket. Berkshire’s open bowler Tom Nugent bowled an excellent opening spell of seven overs and conceding only seven runs. This very much set the tone of for our innings as we lost wickets at regular intervals.

Henley's early breakthrough came in the fifth over when Charlie Macdonell was bowled for 1 by Nugent. The second partnership went one better adding nine before AJ Woodland was caught behind immediately after playing the shot of the innings. Michael Payne joined Steve Clark but was soon ran out after the pair put on 24, the joint highest partnership of the innings. The other was between Sanjoy Bassi and Andy Harris with Bassi top scoring with 19 and Harris second best with 16.

We were finally bowled out for 109 in 38.2 overs. It’s obviously clear that as a team, we need to spend more time at the crease.

In pursuit of the modest score of 110 for victory, Henley got off to a flier as in total contrast to our innings, with our economy rate averaging 8.6 runs per over. There was one consolation wicket, Roberts caught behind by Shelvin Gumbs off the bowling of Woodland as Henley reached their target one down in the 14th over.

BATTING COLLAPSE COSTS SECOND TEAM

Our Second Team slumped to an eight wicket defeat against Eversley as the bowlers were unable to repeat the heroics of the previous week.

But it was not the bowlers who were at fault, but a batting collapse after a good third wicket partnership. Following the loss of two early wickets Matt Bowyer (pictured) and Adam Goldberg set about repairing the damage with a partnership of 94 in a little less than forty overs.

After a season out, Bowyer returned to his old form with an array of shots; anything short on the offside was cut with power though point and on the leg side dispatched through mid wicket. Goldberg scored mainly down to third man; some were edges but kept down and some deliberately steered in that direction. He also played a number of nice looking clips off his legs through mid wicket.

Bowyer top edged Joe Howorth to give him the first of five wickets but with the score on 117 for three in the 28th over a total of 250 still looked possible. This was not to be as no other player reached double figures and there were three ducks, two of them first ballers. There was some poor shot selection as the last six wickets fell for just 17 runs to reach a very disappointing 159 all out.

Paul Orton and Nick Grant produced another very good opening spell as only 35 were scored in the first 14 overs. Grant moved the ball both ways and was rewarded the wickets of both openers caught at the wicket by Dan Tidey before eight overs were completed to give a glimmer of hope. Chris Last and Tom Nichols then dug in and scored just 21 from ten overs with Nichols taking 21 balls to get off the mark. There was no more success for Tring Park and the scoring rate increased as they reached their target for victory with an unbroken third wicket stand of 143 in just over 36 overs.

KEW BEAT THIRD TEAM

The Third Team lost for a second successive week as they beaten at home by Kew. Despite the defeat, the performance was far more encouraging than in the opening game of the season with improvements made with both bat and ball.

Mark Bater won the toss and opted to field and once again gave the new ball to Toby Seagrave and Tom Powell-Williams. Seagrave, who bowled without much luck a week earlier, struck early when he bowled Kew opener Moaz Khan off an inside edge. Kew’s batsman then looked to build a partnership with Sandhu and Mahadevan taking the attack to our bowling.

With inspiration required, wicket-keeper David Crane created the next two wickets with a couple of excellent pieces of cricket. Firstly he stumped opener Kanwar Sandhu down the legside off the bowling of Ben Bezani and then a couple of overs later he ran out Imtiaz Ahmed with a direct hit at the bowlers end.

Our new and inexperienced back up bowling attack of Alan Sheppard, Harry Grinham and Chris Powell did a good job of stopping a full onslaught by our visitors, but Kew did manage to consistently find the boundary. Bater, brought Seagrave back into the attack to bowl at the death and his most experienced bowler didn’t let him down. Seagrave picked up a further four wickets as he ended with figures of 5-53 from his 10 overs as Kew ended up on 259 from their 45 overs.

Our reply was stalled by the early loss of Tom Powell-Williams and captain Mark Bater as we were quickly reduced to 25-2. Nick Wake was then joined by debutant Alex Broughton as the pair looked to make inroads into the Kew total.

Wake showed all his experience finding the gaps through the offside while Broughton used more brute force as he played strokes all around the ground. Wake brought up his second consecutive half century, but with the run rate rising, Broughton was caught behind for 39 and he was quickly joined back in the pavilion by James Wheeler who was also out caught behind.

Nick Wake was eventually dismissed for a very good 93, but despite cameos from Alan Shepperd and wicket-keeper David Crane the Third Team fell 26 runs short.