“Baloo the Jugster” travelled back home last weekend for our League game with Oxford. Charlie Macdonell in his second consecutive week captaining the team in the absence of Shelvin Gumbs won the toss and elected to field.

As usual veteran Simon Stanway opened the bowling, with David Brent his partner at the other end. It took the later only three deliveries in his first over to get the breakthrough, with Stephen Dutch taking an excellent catch behind the stumps to dismiss Harvey Eltham.

We were off to a great start. The second wicket partnership and best of the Oxford innings showed more resilience, however the boys hung in and in his fifth over, Stanway had Oxford’s Captain, Jamie Perkin caught behind again by Dutch.

Oxford continued to rebuild with their wicket-keeper Calvin Dickinson the main stay of their innings. By lunch Oxford was 120-5 from 32 overs with Dickinson still unbeaten on 87.

We were highly charged after an excellent and well enjoyable lunch, with this renewed energy, Spinner Michael Payne immediately removed Dickinson on 88 in a spell of 30 consecutive deliveries where he only conceded one run, ending with figures of 1 for 10 from 12 overs. This spell was brilliantly supported by all the other bowlers, of note were, Mo Choudhry who took 1 for 19 from 10 overs and fellow spinner Rory Criddle who picked up 3 for 10 from 5.5 overs.

The highlight of the day however goes to Michael Payne who suddenly gained wings and flew in the air to take a brilliant one handed catch to remove Oxford’s overseas player who is the league’s current leading run scorer Muhammad Ayub. The catch had to be seen to be believed and our visitors was finally bowled out for 175 in 57.5 overs.

The new opening pair of Andy Dixon and AJ Woodland put on our best opening partnership of the season before Dixon was dismissed for 32 in the 19th over with the score on 52.

Macdonell joined Woodland and the pair steadily took the total to 79 before Woodland was also out on 32. This paved the way for what was to be the best partnership of the match of 64 between Macdonell and Payne. When Macdonell was removed for 43 and Payne 45, it was left to Liam Gough and Brent to take the match over the line with the latter hitting a six over long on to bring up the winning runs.

The First Team is now up to third place in the league, 2 points behind new leaders Slough. The table is very tight with only five points between leaders Slough and Banbury in fifth.

“Baloo the Jugster” will be travelling to Finchampstead CC next Saturday and we welcome captain Shelvin Gumbs back into the team after two weeks our due to work.

SECONDS, THIRDS & FOURTHS

The Second Team made it four successive wins with a 46 run at Ruislip. Batting first, we raced 40 off four overs. But the loss of wicket-keeper Jeremy O’Neill for a 23-ball 32 heralded a collapse as two wickets fell on 42 and in the 11th over the score had subsided to 70 for 5. Ash Haw, playing his first game of the season for the Second Team, provided some late resistance with 27, before the innings closed on a disappointing 142.

Ruislip too enjoyed a positive start and the openers had put on 28 in seven overs. Their captain Matt Ayling failed to cope with a short ball from Charlie Greer which hit his helmet and the resulting cut above his left eye saw him retire, be taken to hospital and take no further part in the game.

Greer continued with an excellent spell of new ball bowling has he ripped out the top order with five wickets for 23 runs in four overs to leave Ruislip reeling at 73 for 5.

Paul Orton had then been introduced to the attack and his spell of 3 wickets for four runs from 20 balls saw the unlikely victory virtually complete. Ruislip were dismissed for 96 as the we romped home by a margin of 46 runs when Will Darraugh took the final catch on the midwicket boundary off the bowling of Jake Seagrave.

The Second Team remain second in the table, 26 points ahead of Chiswick and Whitton in third.

The Third Team were only two wickets away from joining the Second Team in a run of four successive wins on Saturday. A home fixture saw the arrival of Farnham Royal on a bouncy track.

Captain Mark Bater won the toss and elected to bat with opener Josh Camm leading the way scoring a quick fire 83. Camm is on excellent run of form, scoring successive half centuries and his tally of 234 runs is the fifth highest in the division. Camm was well supported by Angus Cumming (31) and Stuart Quilliam closed the innings with a fine unbeaten knock of 53 as Bater declared with us 244-6.

Farnham Royal batted steadily but lost regular wickets with Tristan Murrell being the pick of the bowlers with 5-37 and the canny Dan Boniface controlling the run rate picking up 3 - 20. Farnham Royal finished 213-8 after 51 overs which was disappointing based on our efforts. The Third Team remain second in the table, eight points behind leaders Slough.

The Fourth Team remain in second in their respective division despite defeat at NPL in Teddington last weekend. After being asked to bat, our Fourth Team were dismissed for 151, Dick Highton top scored for Andy Grout's men with a well made 31.

Despite a brave effort in the field, NPL chased down the target with the loss of only three wickets. Tom Powell-Williams once again impressed with the ball picking up 2-26.

On Sunday we had more Tring T20 Blast action. The stand out game saw The Cheetahs defeat the Cougars on the final ball of the game and the Panthers beat the Tigers in the other meeting.