First win of the season for the 1st XI!

On a damp, cloudy and generally grey day, Beaconsfield showed that they had learnt from their previous weeks failings and made sure of their first win of the season in comfortable fashion.

The hard work needed for this victory started before the match as members of the team assisted on the Friday evening & early Saturday morning, forking areas where earlier rain had gathered to ensure that the game could go ahead.

With conditions as they were and the pitch always likely to be a bit spongey, Sam Musk crucially won the toss and asked Basingstoke to bat. The opening bowling partnership of Jon Mahood & Ahmed Hassan didn't blow the Basingstoke top order away but at least ensured that runs were hard to come by and the run rate didn't really crep above 2 an over for the first 15 overs. Hassan (1-23) picked up Chris Froud and then the introduction of the returning David Heavyside (2-32) saw Basingstoke struggling at 32-3. Jon Mahood then removed Coombs to make it 42-4 as he toiled away during a 20 over spell finishing with 1-39.

Heavyside could have had a 3rd wicket but for a missed catch off Dean Nurse, which proved costly as he went out to take the attack to the Beaconsfield bowlers scoring 67, whilst receiving support at the other end from Craig Williamson (33). The pair put on 96 before first Jason Harrison had Nurse stumped and then following over Sam Musk had Williamson stumped and also accounted Bucksey for 0. In the end Basingstoke managed to get to 162-9 in their 52 overs with Musk finishing with 3-32 at the end of the innings.

In reply, the opening pair of Jeremy Suter (15) & Adam Francis (16) once again got Beaconsfield off to a positive, solid start and were going along nicely before a miscommunication saw Francis run out off a direct hit. Suter was then unfortunately trapped LBW just before the rain came and saw the players leave the pitch with the score at 40-2. Fortunately the delay wasn't for long and Luc Walker (33) and Chris Thomas (73) began building the match-winning partnership that was required with Thomas taking the more positive approach as they put on 84 against an ever increasingly demoralised Basingstoke attack. Walker was eventually bowled by an unplayable delivery and Thomas was also dismissed trying to finish the game in a hurry, which just left Jason Harrison (11*) and David Heavyside (4*) to finish off the game.

The win was good reward for a lot of hard work on and off the pitch and hopefully this is the start of a winning habit.