Binfield's 5th XI won a Thames Valley Cricket League (TVCL) Division 9D thriller by nine runs at Desborough College on Saturday 18 July 2026, posting 255 on the back of Vikram Duraiswamy's 86 and Simon Cowley's 78, then holding their nerve as Amersham CC's 4th XI fell agonisingly short on 246.

There are afternoons when nine runs feel like a whole mountain range, and this was gloriously one of them. Binfield's 5th XI, choosing to bat first under captain Matthew Potter, made a thoroughly commanding 255 — and then had to watch every last one of those runs earn its keep. What a finish!

At the heart of the innings were Vikram Duraiswamy and Simon Cowley, who between them very nearly built the whole thing. Duraiswamy's 86 was full of good sense and good timing; Cowley's 78 kept it company until he was run out, and by the time James Bennett had added 23 the total had swelled beyond what most 9D sides would fancy chasing.

Amersham, though, are no strangers to a pursuit, and Ramesh Sistla and Sulaiman Tariq Khan — 54 apiece — threatened to make a nonsense of the target. But Binfield kept finding a way, Bennett and James Davies chipping out wickets at the vital moments, and the visitors' innings, so full of promise, closed nine runs adrift on 246.

It was the kind of low-margin win that tells you plenty about a side's nerve: two fifties answered by two more, a total defended by the width of a single good stand. You could not have asked for a tighter, happier Saturday's cricket.