It went to the very last ball. Binfield Cricket Club's women completed a hat-trick of wins over Reading Lions this season with the narrowest victory imaginable in their Berkshire Women's Softball Division 1 match at Highmoor on the morning of Sunday 19 July, chasing down Reading Lions' 122 and needing a single run from the final delivery to win by one - 323 to 322 in the softball reckoning.

There is a particular sweetness in beating the same opponent three times in a single summer, and Binfield's softballers have now done precisely that to Reading Lions. Having seen them off at home in May, and again in the final of the Softball World Cup in June, they made it a hat-trick on a bright, early Sunday morning at Highmoor. Reading Lions batted first and leaned heavily on the few: Darshan Kaur was quite magnificent for an unbeaten 34 from just 20 balls, Ashwini Ashwini struck a brisk 28, and with a further 26 arriving in extras, that trio of contributions accounted for the lion's share of their 122 - a total which, in the softball reckoning where each side begins on a notional 200 and forfeits five for every wicket lost, set Binfield 322 to overhaul.

Where Reading Lions had relied on the few, Binfield answered with the many. Batting in pairs, as the softball format demands, they shared the load beautifully: Alison Wade and Maisie Rawes led off with 32 between them, Jackie Rawes and Collette Reynolds added 18 more, and Olivia Ternent and Gosia Hopley chipped in 26 - Hopley's punchy 19 the pick of that stand. With a further 32 coming in extras, and not a single soul asked to play the lone hero, Binfield kept themselves stride for stride with the chase, over after over, run for run.

Alison Wade · 20 top score

And so it fell to the final pair, captain Lize Lamprecht and Michelle Slaughter, to see it home - and for a while victory looked to be theirs at a stroll. Then came the twist. Lamprecht was bowled by the ever-dangerous Darshan Kaur, and in softball a single wicket costs a precious five runs; all at once the margin was wafer-thin, the whole ground was holding its breath, and there were still overs to survive. Down it came, in the end, to the very last ball, with a single run wanted for the win. There was, by all accounts, a flicker of temptation to chance a risky second - but with the game balanced on a knife-edge Binfield wisely settled for the one, took it cleanly, and the deed was done.

Binfield had won, 323 to 322 - or, as the players will happily tell it, 123 plays 122 once the notional 200 is set aside - by a single, priceless run. And what a curious arithmetic underpinned it: off the bat, remarkably, the two sides had scored precisely the same, 96 runs apiece, so that every ounce of Binfield's advantage was written in the extras column, where Reading Lions' bowlers gave away 32 to Binfield's 26. That six-run cushion, trimmed by the five-run penalty for Lamprecht's wicket, left the barest margin of one. Every warm word, too, for Reading Lions, and for Darshan Kaur above all, whose blazing 34 so nearly turned the tables - three defeats to the same side in a season is a hard thing to bear. But this nerve-shredding morning at Highmoor belonged, gloriously, to Binfield's women, and to a hat-trick beautifully completed. What a way to win!