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Runfeasts In The Baking Sun August 9th/10th 2003

Each one of the six innings was over 200, but Denham drew one (2nd XI) and lost the other two matches.

Denham v Binfield 1st XI (See scorecard)

Denham won the toss and batted first on a perfect batting wicket. Flash Tobin (51) got us off to a good start but it was Dave Maynard (93 not out) and Gary Hales (89 not out) who really made hay while the sun shone. Dave Maynard's innings was described as 'majestic, if a little dehydrated near the end' while he in turn described Gary Hales' innings as 'near perfect'.

Looking for the win, Skipper Payne declared on 260/2 after only 49 overs - a decision he probably grew to regret as the Binfield batting was also of particularly high quality (Canty 82, Goddard not out 119) and they reached their target for the loss of just one wicket in 43 overs. All the Denham bowlers struggled manfully in the heat, with Bobby Rai perhaps holding his own best when the charge was on.

Denham v Binfield 2nd XI

Meanwhile the Denham 2nd XI was also knocking up a high score. Two early wickets brought Faisal (an expansive 63) and Ambrose Treacy (a rapid 93) together and these two knocked up 145 in good time. JK then contributed a a swift cameo of 39 helping Denham to 231/7 off the maximum 52 overs.

Binfield got off to a reasonable start but were always a little behind the rate, finishing at 205/3 off their 48 overs.

Andy Leach had a long a tidy bowl but it was joint Men-of-the-Match Ambrose Treacy (1/35 off 9) and Faisal (2/32 off 14) who also took the bowling honours.

Sunday XI v Virgin Casuals (See scorecard) (See their Report)

Because of the record temperatures (over 100 degrees Fahrenheit at Heathrow) the match was reduced to 35 overs.

The Denham innings thundered along at well over 6 runs an over, but kept losing wickets. A number of batsmen got in and then got out to rash shots just when we had come to expect a big innings from them.

Andy Leach promised much with a vigorous 26, Dave Maynard was just rolling up his sleeves for a long innings before he perished for 16, James Nicholas was looking in command before he was surprised by Donald's extra-fast ball for 38, while Stuart Payne was run out for a promising 48 (interesting description of this in The Casuals match report). Final flurries by Harish Bhatt and Jeff Simpson took us past 200: 204/9 off our 35 overs. The pick of the Casuals bowlers were Gurney (4/46) and Donald (2/33)

We then had the Casuals 23/4, with both James Nicholas and Jeff Simpson looking very dangerous. In came Qaisar Nadeem, who began stroking the ball around with real assurance. By the time Qaisar fell for an excellent 86 it was 151/6 and the asking rate was under 4 an over. Joe Donald for Casual then knocked up a rapidfire 54 not out (his fifty coming in 20 balls) to bring Casuals home with 4 wickets and 4.1 overs to spare.

Jeff Simpson got 2/30 off his 7 overs, while James Nicholas had 1/26 off 5 and Jack Grover 1/31 off just short of 5. Steve Bull made a number of brave diving saves on the boundary.