Following a wet week and overnight rain, First Team captain Charlie Macdonell won the toss and offered Slough first use of the wicket as the League format returned to 50 overs a-side from the timed game format.

Slough’s plan of opening with a ‘pinch hitter’ proved successful during the opening overs as Ali Ahmed and Yaqoot Rafiq the got off to an excellent start.

The ever reliable and experienced Simon Stanway kept his cool and made the initial breakthrough. Slough continued to push along scoring frequently, however the First Team bowling attack kept to the task and took wickets at regular intervals.

Stanway picked out two wickets from his 10 over spell and this was equally supported by Andy Harris and Scott Rolfe who picked up two and three wickets respectively. Slough ended their innings on a respectable score of 228-9 off their 50 overs.

With AJ Woodland on 12th man duties at Lords, David Burnell had a new opening partner in Shelvin Gumbs. This was great to see the First Team opening the batting with two batters aged 17 and younger. The pair put on an opening stand of 64 to set a decent platform when Gumbs out for 26 when he was dismissed by Saif Zaib.

Michael Payne and Burnell then added 79 for the second wicket, but after the loss of Burnell for 64 the game took an unexpected turn as Payne worked with the middle order to get us to our target. Slough fought back taking quick wickets and the target of 228 seemed a long way away as the First Team’s last pair was at the crease with 21 runs still needed.

Harris and Chloe Hill continued to work the ball around and take quick singles. Then as a result of Slough’s slow over rate, they were penalised by six runs at the end of the 49th over. This meant with nine wickets down, the First Team needed eight runs from the last over, and a final ball thriller saw the First Team winning by one wicket.

PARTNER TON LEADS SECOND TEAM TO VICTORY

This 10 run victory for the Second Tea, was set up by Adam Partner’s (pictured) brilliant innings of 144 from 103 balls. He opened his boundary account of 15 fours and three sixes with an exquisitely timed shot through long on and followed it three balls later with another played through long off. This rather spoiled Nick Baxter’s figures after having conceded just one run an over from his first nine, he conceded as many from his last.

Partner also made light of Danish Zaman’s record of 32 wickets and conceding at slightly over four an over this season as he hit him for eight fours and three sixes to see him end wicketless with 94 runs from his ten overs. His first four off Zaman announced the arrival of his onslaught. He faced a further 82 balls, scoring 127 from them. He finally succumbed as he advanced down the pitch to Chip Lawton, his tired shot missed the ball and he was stumped. But he had taken Second Team from 41-3 to 260-8 in two balls short of 34 overs. He shared a fourth wicket partnership of 128 with Matt Grinham which steadied the innings. Later a breezy 25 from young Ed Pike, which included a six over long on into the Pound Meadow hedge, saw the final total to 268-9.

While mentioning Ed Pike, was this match that saw his coming of age as a Second Team player? He had seven previous sorties into the Second Team for League games, but in this match, as well as achieving his highest score with useful runs down the order he also bowled his slow left arm for a full allocation of ten overs unchanged picking up his first league wicket in the process. He drifted down the leg side a few times early on, but soon sorted out his line. Admittedly he got hit for six a couple of times as Kew forced the pace, but more experienced slow left arm bowlers than Pike have suffered similar or worse fates than that. And he capped it off with a very good catch at a straight deep mid wicket to dismiss Dave Ramsden in the forty second over just after he had reached his half century and was starting to increase the tempo.

Although in their pursuit of 269 to win Kew fell just 11 runs short, victory always looked unlikely as the required rate crept up and 102 were needed from the final ten overs. The increase in the scoring did not come until 27 were hit from the 44th and 45th overs but this was soon stemmed as Toby Wastling bowled Tom Hall, as he took the last of his three wickets, and Paul Orton followed this up by bowling both Lewis Abbot, who had scored 41 and was looking threatening, and Sean Abbott in the next over.

That left 40 runs needed from the last two overs, but although there was a little late flurry of hitting a scoring rate of in excess of three runs a ball was too big an ask.

Nick Grant had opened the bowling with a good display, conceding just 21 runs from his eight over spell, and picking up the wickets of the two openers, both caught at the wicket by James Hawkes. The third wicket then put on 78 before Wastling took the first of his wickets with his fifth ball as he dismissed Jack Maciver LBW for 49. This was followed by Pike’s wicket in the next over and then fifty were scored in the next ten overs against an asking rate in excess of seven and a half runs an over.

The victory keeps the Second Team in third place, but second place is now arithmetically beyond them. A win at seventh placed Maidenhead & Bray this Saturday should go a long way to securing a top half finish.

THREES BEATEN AT PRINCES RISBOROUGH

Having won the toss on a damp wicket putting the home side in to bat was an obvious decision for stand in captain Ian Ridley. A solid opening spell from Stanley Baughan saw his 10 overs go for only 30 runs including the wicket of Farhan Khan.

First change Harvey Graham took two wickets and Matt Bowyer bowled a miserly spell with figures of 2-20 off his 10 overs including the important wicket of the league’s leading run scorer Matt Greaves for 47. From being 80-0, Princes Risborough were now 102-4 but a solid partnership between Wes Strecker & Mark Shimmin kept the scoreboard ticking over.

The Third Team bowlers kept to their task but struggled to break this partnership. Shimmin was finally caught by Harry Grinham for 46 in the 44th over as the home side pushed hard in the last few overs. Strecker finishing unbeaten on 53 as Princes Risborough posted a total of 201-5 in their 45 overs. With the sticky wicket and slow outfield this was probably worth 230-240 but was certainly not unobtainable.

In reply the Third Team batsman got off to a slow start with tight bowling on the still tacky wicket. Wickets fell too regularly as the required run rate slowly increased. Only Harvey Graham (26) and Matt Bowyer (22) had made it into double figures when Jake Seagrave joined young Harry Grinham in the 22nd over with the score on 72-6. These two batted sensibly and pushed as hard as they could under the circumstances, but the required run rate was always slowly increasing.

With 30 required off the last two overs Seagrave went for the big one but was caught out for a well-made 32. Grinham, who went to his half century with a six over long-on, was out with one ball remaining for a quality 68 as the Third Team finished 178-9 which was unfortunately 23 runs short.

YOU’LL WIN NOTHING WITH KIDS

The Fourth Team welcomed Burnham on a day where the sun shined after the torrential rain on Friday. The Fourth Team certainly spanned the ages. The team was made up of two under 13s ,an under 14 and two under 15 girls, two guys in their 30s , one in his 40's and three older guys in their late 50's.

As has become the norm of late Captain Andy Grout lost the toss and the Fourth team were invited to bat first. Jim Turner , back after a series of prenatal classes looked to make up for lost time hitting a rapid 24 before being caught in the outfield.

Dick Highton batted sensibly for 26 and the Fourth Team were nicely placed at 79-2 at half way stage. That rapidly became 81-5 and alarm bells were ringing as an out of form Steve Wale was joined by debutant Hannah Davies. Those alarm bells were soon silenced and after a 114 run unbeaten partnership saw the Fourth Team finish on 195-5. Steve Wale showing that form is indeed temporary with 70 and Hannah scoring an excellent 29.

Freddie Newman and Natalie Gurnett took the new ball and made fine use of it restricting Burnham to 23-1 off the first nine overs. Finn Wade and Hannah Davies kept up the good work with a mixture of seam from and leg spin and Burnham were struggling at 69-2 off 21 overs with Hannah taking a deserved wicket via a spectacular diving catch from Steve Wale.

Captain Grout and Krishna Mohan then kept the pressure on with the skipper taking three wickets, two of them stumpings by Jim Turner who had a fine game behind the stumps.

Steve Wale took a couple of wickets as well and fitting the youngsters finished it off with Gurnett taking the last wicket to finish up with impressive figures of 1-12 from 6.3 overs as Burnham were bowled at for 176 in the final over.