Windsor 3rd XI 224 (Gould 59)
Datchet 3rd XI 226-7 (Agawal 64, White 54)
Winsdor 3rd XI’s unbeaten run came to an end on Saturday after a poor performance in variable conditions at Home Park.
Batting first after skipper Noble had won the toss, Windsor got off to a flying start as Sam Jordan and Kev Clifford set about the Datchet openers in a positive manner and even after the loss of a couple of quick wickets George Gould carried on his form of last week with some excellent boundaries as Windsor scored at over 7 an over for the first 15 overs. However, due to a mixture of good bowling, a largely dead pitch and poor shot selection Windsor continued to lose wickets at regular intervals throughout the innings even though the runs were being scored at a good rate, helped largely to some big hitting from Kemp who made 31 and 28 from Alex Haynes in the middle order but after both these went in quick succession wickets continued to fall. Only Wigley made any real indent in the scorebook with a few boundaries in his 20no. as Windsor were eventually bowled out for 224 in the 42nd over, a scorecard containing no less than 5 LBW decisions (given by the Windsor players incidentally!) leaving Datchet with 58 overs to get to their target of 225 at a rate of under 4 an over. There was clearly going to be a winner in this match.
As the Windsor innings finished early it was decided to have 10 overs of the Datchet innings before Tea and Kemp got Windsor off to a perfect start by bowling the Datchet opener in his first over without a run on the board. The pace of Kemp was causing problems but Datchet continued to be positive and really went after the Windsor bowling, hitting many boundaries to pass the 50 mark inside 9 overs. Unfortunately for Windsor, in the last over before the Tea break Windsor put down a regulation catch to get rid of Datchet’s dangerous batsman Agawal which proved to be costly as after the tea break he continued where he left off (with a large slice of luck on more than one occasion) and in partnership with White, they hammered the Windsor bowling to all parts. Needing a wicket, Noble turned to the spin of Haynes and he brought an instant impact by getting rid of the free-scoring Agawal and in the next over Hodgson got rid of the new batsman and the two wickets in as many overs were exactly what was needed as Windsor tried to claw their way back into the game. Noble turned to Kemp in an attempt to get the next breakthrough but the Datchet batsmen White and Shepherd looked set to guide Datchet home as they passed the 200 mark with only 4 wickets down until the inspired change of bringing Haynes back into the attack did the trick with two wickets in an over getting rid of both White, with a high full toss which the batsman lost in the sun, and a wide turner which the batsman edged behind. Jordan also claimed a wicket as Windsor now sniffed a chance of victory and that nearly became closer in the next Haynes over but unfortunately another regulation chance was spilled at point and that was Windsor’s last chance as Datchet sealed a three wicket win with 13 overs to spare. Noble will be looking for a better all round performance next week to get the promotion bandwagon back on track as Windsor travel to Chesham.
