Binfield Cricket Club's 5th XI lost by 99 runs to Winchmore Hill CC (Penn) 2nd XI at Sol Joel Park on Saturday 1 August 2026, a Thames Valley Cricket League (TVCL) Division 9D fixture in which the visitors' Tom Davies made 46 and then took 5 for 19, Binfield's own attack having earlier had Winchmore Hill six down for 108.

Every so often a side runs into one man doing rather too much of everything, and there is very little to be done about it. Tom Davies made 46 with the bat and then took five wickets for 19 runs with the ball, and Winchmore Hill's 2nd XI went home from Sol Joel Park with a 99-run win that his day's work very largely built.

Binfield won the toss and fielded, and for two-thirds of the first innings it looked an excellent decision. Rakesh Sugumar bowled eight overs for 32 and three wickets at an economy of exactly four an over, Archie Orr took 3 for 32, and with Finn Mitchell and Chris Bullett taking two apiece the wickets came at steady intervals - 13 for 1, 40 for 3, 76 for 4 - until the visitors were 108 for 6. Six down and still short of a hundred and ten: this was a game Binfield were winning.

The seventh wicket changed all that. Davies and Hammaad Ali put on 76 together - better than a third of the whole innings - to lift Winchmore Hill from 108 for 6 to 184 for 7. Davies made his 46 from 46 balls with six fours and a six; Ali finished unbeaten on 46 from 52 with eight fours. Binfield did eventually clean up the tail, Archie Orr taking the last two wickets, but 216 all out was a very long way from where 108 for 6 had left things.

The chase was, in truth, never on. The run chart shows Binfield trailing from the start and never closing the gap - 31 after ten overs against Winchmore Hill's 52, 74 after twenty against 108, 115 after thirty against 161 - the two lines running obstinately parallel rather than converging. Evie Folwell top-scored with a determined 26 from 53 balls and added 44 with James Bennett for the third wicket, the only period in which Binfield looked at all settled, taking the score from 31 for 2 to 75 for 3.

Then Davies came back on. Binfield lost five wickets for 23 runs between 75 and 98, four of them to him, and he took his fifth when the innings closed at 117 - bowling four of his victims outright in a spell of 5.2 overs that cost just 19 runs. Peter Henly and Chris Bullett added a late 18 that at least spared the scoreboard, but 117 all out was the end of it. The 5th XI sit fifth in Division 9D on 164 points, with plenty of season left; Winchmore Hill, and Mr Davies in particular, deserve every bit of the credit for this one. Better days lie ahead at Sol Joel Park.