The First Team played host to Buckingham Town last weekend. On a welcome hot day, the visitors won the toss and elected to bat first. Buckingham had an early setback as Tom Weymes clean bowled Steven Brunning in the second over of the innings.

A long 12-over spell from veteran Simon Stanway which saw him concede only eight runs with Buckingham opener Leigh Tomlinson took 48 deliveries to get off the mark.

Frequent wickets throughout the innings kept Buckingham in check. Going into the last 10 overs of their innings the visitors had two wickets in hand with the First Team looking to bowl them out within the allotted overs. Our visitors had other ideas as they scored 60 in the last 10 overs to post a total of 240. Andy Harris was the pick of our bowlers for 3-36.

Our innings got off to a positive start with AJ Woodland driving the first ball for four. A miss judgement however cost us the early wicket of Woodland as he was run out for 14. Mo Choudhry hung around as he shared partnerships with Charlie Macdonell, Michael Payne, Rory Criddle and Matt Grinham before finally falling on 22 from 76 deliveries.

It was let to Grinham and Sanjoy Bassi to see out the last 27 overs and a draw as the First Team ended 189-5. Grinham played an excellent innings to finish unbeaten on 65 and he was well supported by Bassi who finished on 26.

TWOS THRASHED

The Second Team lost to top of the table Ickenham as they were unable to handle the excellent opening bowling attack of Krissie Mistry and Shaun Stagg. By the time Stagg came out of the attack, the Second Team’s score stood at a very sorry 48-6 after the top order had been blown away. Opener, Andy Dixon offered some resistance for 50 minutes, but was defeated by Stagg’s full length quick delivery that saw his off stump uprooted.

Lawrence Snookes and Jake Seagrave then dug in, and at one point there were no runs off the bat for over half an hour, the only additions to the total being a couple of wides and a no ball. They batted for four minutes short of an hour before Snookes headed for a second run, only to look up when he was three quarters of the way down the pitch to see that Seagrave was still in his crease. Ed Pike saw the score to 100 and two batting points with 17 not out which included two drives though extra cover for four off Stagg after he returned to the attack.

The Second Team were defending a total of only 113 which never looked anywhere near enough. But they did get the early key wicket of captain Elliot Evans who was averaging 78 this summer. He edged his second delivery from Snookes, Benn Kempster at second slip leapt high and to his left but the ball flew thorough his fingertips. But when he faced his third ball, this time from Nick Grant, he turned the ball square for Pike to a take straightforward catch at square leg.

Grant struck again four overs later as Dan Pope gave umpire Martin House one of the easiest LBW decisions. There could have been more success, but two catches were dropped and another taken was off a no ball as Ickenham strolled to victory within sixteen overs.

THIRD TEAM HAVE FUN IN THE SUN

The Third Team were looking to bounce back from a disappointing defeat to Beaconsfield last week in a mid-table clash against Chalfont St Peter. On what was speculated to be to hottest June day on record, captain Mark Bater won the toss and surprisingly chose to field first.

51 overs, four drinks breaks, and what seemed like 10 hours later, Chalfont had amassed 258 runs and the Third Team had lost about 258 kg of weight in sweat chasing leather around a quick Chalfont St Peter outfield. Leg-spinner James Darraugh was the pick of the bowlers picking up 3-73 on a tough day for the Third Team bowlers.

With Afghanistan on the brink of an unlikely victory against Pakistan as the Third Team went out to bat, they believed anything was possible. Unfortunately, as Afghanistan completely bottled it and the Third Team creeped to 50 odd for no loss from the first 20 overs, that optimism faded.

A well made 50 from Bater and a tidy 38 from Nick Wale weren’t enough to get the Third Team through an unlikely chase as they finished on 175-6.

FOURTH TEAM HEATWAVE

We all look forward to a heatwave and sitting in the garden or the Balcony with a couple of cold ones. However we were playing cricket first and that was hard work on by far the hottest day of the year.

Captain Andy Grout won the toss and made the obvious decision of batting first. Opening batsmen Nick Wake and Josh Camm got off to a fine start putting on 57 for the first wicket, but a flurry of wickets left us at 91-5.

Harvey Chamberlain scored an unbeaten 54 to take the Fourth Team to 168-9 from 52 overs. Kudos to the Woburn opening bowler Richard Barker who bowled 20 overs without a break.

The Fourth Team bowled without luck and edges and inside edges missing hands and stumps but Woburn were well worth the win getting home for the loss of only one wicket.