Binfield Cricket Club's 1st XI lost by 91 runs at home to Sulhamstead & Ufton CC's 1st XI on Saturday 1 August 2026, a Thames Valley Cricket League (TVCL) Division 2A fixture turned by Rehaan Samdani's hat-trick, three wickets in three balls that took Binfield from 94 for 4 to 94 for 7 and undid Elliot Coggins' own three-wicket burst in the final over of the Sulhamstead innings.

A wry premise for you: this was a match in which both sides produced three wickets in the space of a handful of deliveries, and only one of those bursts is going to be remembered. Such is cricket, and such is the difference between a flourish at the end of an innings and a hat-trick in the middle of a chase.

Sulhamstead & Ufton won the toss and batted, and for a long while made a thoroughly unhurried job of it. Marc Thompson's 53 came from 88 balls and Mubarak Tahir's 45 from 54, the pair adding 77 for the second wicket - the biggest partnership either side managed all day - to take the visitors from 45 for 1 to 122 for 2. Shevin Hewavitharana's 38 kept it going. Binfield's bowling was patient rather than penetrative through the middle: Dylan Wood sent down thirteen overs for 38 and two wickets, Thomas Williams thirteen for 52 and two, and James Frost was the meanest of them, six overs for 17 without reward.

Then, in the fifty-second and final over of that innings, Elliot Coggins took three wickets in five balls - Phillip Walden caught by Sam Kennett, Doug MacDonald caught by Jack Collett and Rehaan Samdani caught behind by Arno Hattingh - to finish the innings on 223 all out and his own figures on 4 for 23 from 7.5 overs, an economy of under three an over. It was a lovely piece of work, and for a good while afterwards it looked as though it might be the day's decisive spell.

Binfield's reply started better than the eventual scoreline suggests. At ten overs they had 44 on the board to Sulhamstead's 20 at the same stage, Mac Dsouza striking seven fours in a brisk 40 from 39 balls. But Craig Palmer removed Dsouza at 66 for 4, and then came the over that settled everything. Rehaan Samdani, bowling the twenty-eighth, had Chris Morgan caught for 21, bowled Elliot Coggins first ball, and bowled Thomas Williams first ball as well: a hat-trick, three wickets without a run scored, and Binfield 94 for 7 where a moment earlier they had been 94 for 4. Good heavens, what a way to lose a session.

Sam Kennett fought on with real stubbornness, batting from 66 for 4 all the way to 132 all out and finishing as the last man dismissed for a 72-ball 40 - present at every one of the innings' last six dismissals, which is a lonely sort of statistic. Samdani ended with 4 for 31 from thirteen overs, four of them maidens, meaning not a single run came off them.

One curiosity worth recording: the extras columns were identical. Nine runs apiece, and in the entire match neither attack bowled a single wide or no-ball - all eighteen of those extras were byes and leg byes. The 91-run margin owed nothing whatever to indiscipline in the field on either side and everything to bat and ball. Binfield nevertheless remain top of Division 2A on 256 points, which puts this afternoon in its proper perspective; Sulhamstead & Ufton, tenth in the table, will be delighted with a day's work well beyond the form book. A rare off-day from a side still leading the division.