Binfield Cricket Club's Women's 1st XI lost by seven wickets at home to Thame Town CC on Sunday 12 July in the Home Counties Women's Cricket League Premier Division, Phebe Salter's excellent 71 the outstanding feature of a total of 183 that the visitors overhauled for the loss of only three wickets.

Some innings deserve a kinder scoreboard around them than they get, and Phebe Salter's 71 was one such. On a warm afternoon at Binfield, hers was very nearly a lone hand: the specialist batting either side of her came in modest parcels - Millie Roberts 28, Layla Judge 16, Poppy Evans 13 - as Harshani Wijerathna (3 for 23) and Helena Purushothaman (3 for 37) shared six wickets between them and the home side were bowled out for 183.

Captain Zoe Docherty then led from the front with the ball, taking all three wickets to fall - bowling Megs Woodward, Leanne Harris and Natasha Carter in a probing spell of 3 for 33. For a while it kept Binfield honestly in the contest. But Thame Town had an unbroken fourth-wicket stand in them, Purushothaman finishing 55 not out and Wijerathna 40 not out, and once that pair were set the target of 184 was reeled in with overs to spare.

Phebe Salter · 71

If there was a lesson in the afternoon it was written in the extras column. Binfield conceded 52 extras in the field, 33 of them wides, and on a day when the margins were fine those free runs eased Thame's passage considerably. It is the least glamorous way to lose ground in a run chase, and the sort of thing a side puts right on the training ground rather than in the report.

Binfield sit eighth in a Premier Division of real quality - Charlbury are running away at the top, and Falkland piled up 373 elsewhere that same afternoon - so there is no disgrace in a seven-wicket defeat to a well-drilled Thame side. Salter, better known for her bowling (15 wickets at 15.67, with a five-for to her name), announced herself with the bat in the finest style. First-rate stuff, and a knock to build a summer around.

Zoe Docherty · 3-33