Jack Collett has brought up his 500th wicket for Binfield, and he has done it in a season so generously sprinkled with milestones that your correspondent has quite run out of teacups to raise.
Milestones reached — 2026 season
Harry Jones
200th wicket1,500 career runs50th maiden over
Now, my dear old things, I do love a milestone. There is something wonderfully reassuring about a number with a nice round look to it, and this 2026 season the cricketers of Binfield have served them up like cucumber sandwiches at tea — by the plateful, and with the crusts left on for good measure.
Pride of place, and a standing ovation from the entire press box such as it is, goes to Jack Collett. Five hundred wickets! Half a thousand! A figure so handsome it deserves its own lap of honour and a second slice of the tea-room sponge. As if that were not enough for one man, he has gone and slipped past four thousand career runs in the same breath, which makes him that rarest and most cherished of creatures — a genuine all-rounder, the sort who keeps the scorers happily scribbling all afternoon.
Then come the great accumulators. Matt Humphrey, a man who treats the boundary rope as a personal acquaintance, has passed six and a half thousand runs and brought up his 300th appearance into the bargain — three hundred times he has buckled on the pads for the club, which is devotion of the most marvellous kind. Hard on his heels, Dan Humphrey has sailed beyond six thousand of his own, while Wynand Lamprecht (three and a half thousand runs, and a fiftieth wicket for luck) and Andy Mills (three thousand runs, and a hundredth match) keep the family of run-makers in the very best of company.
The bowlers and the all-rounders, bless them, have not been left in the pavilion. Harry Jones has enjoyed a season of which legends are made — fifteen hundred runs, a 200th wicket, and a 50th maiden over all in the one glorious summer. Rob Pigden has reached his hundredth wicket and his fiftieth maiden; Rahul Gupta has eased to a hundred and fifty; and there is a fine procession of fifty-maiden men besides — Ben Clark and Layla Judge among them — for the maiden over, my dear old things, is the quiet handshake of cricket, and deserves its due.
And then the rising tide, which is the loveliest sight of all. Evie Folwell and Jack Green have each brought up a thousand career runs; Jaden Slaughter and James Bennett have passed two thousand; Grant Celliers and Sam Kennett fifteen hundred; while a cheerful gang — Tom Phizackerley, Chris Emes, Charlie Miles, Luke Taylor and Chris White — have all raised their first five hundred. Kamal Gupta has clocked up his 200th match, and the fifty-appearance club has welcomed Anthony Goff, Jack Green and Tony Smith through its doors.
It is, my dear old things, a marvellous thing to watch a club pile up its little landmarks like so much treasure. A pigeon of considerable self-importance is at this moment strolling across the square as though it, too, fancies a bowl, and somewhere beyond the sightscreen a red bus is going about its business entirely unaware of the feast of numbers within. Long may the runs flow, the wickets tumble, and the cake hold out.