Binfield Cricket Club's 4th XI won by 121 runs at home on Saturday 8 August 2026, posting 289 for 7 in a Thames Valley Cricket League (TVCL) Division 8B fixture built on a 107-run fourth-wicket stand between wicket-keeper Steve Jeffery (56) and Tony Smith (59), before captain Abinandan Venkatraman's 3 for 17 helped bowl Henley CC's 4th XI out for 168.

My dear old things, there are totals that settle a match before a single ball of the reply has been bowled, and 289 for 7 on a warm afternoon at Sol Joel Park was very much one of them. Binfield won the toss, chose to bat, and by the close of their forty overs had made a score that Henley CC's 4th XI were never realistically going to get anywhere near - and, in the event, they finished 121 runs short.

It did not begin altogether smoothly. Andy Chinn and Jakob Albiston, Henley's captain, shared the new ball tidily and had Binfield three down for 72 inside the first dozen overs, Anthony Goff caught and Adrian Millerick and Keegan Barreto both gone. Through all of it Steve Jeffery, keeping wicket and opening the batting, simply refused to be hurried - 6 not out, 7 not out, 19 not out at each successive fall, watchful as a cat at a mousehole while the innings steadied around him.

Then came the passage that won the match. Jeffery and Tony Smith put on 107 together for the fourth wicket, carrying Binfield from a slightly anxious 72 for 3 to a commanding 179 for 4 and never once looking like parting. Jeffery's 56 came from 76 balls, the most measured of the day's big scores; Smith's 59 leaned harder on the boundary, eleven fours in it, forty-four of his runs struck to the fence. It was, in the old phrase, a partnership to build a house on.

The lower order then had a merry time of it. Anthony Goff had earlier made 26 from just eleven balls - every run of it in boundaries, five fours and a six and not a single other scoring shot, which is about as brutal an cameo as you will see - and at the death Venkatraman (29 not out from 16) and Chris White (22 not out from 11) helped themselves to an unbroken 41. It should be said that Henley's bowlers were generous hosts: they gave away 47 extras, seventeen of them wides, against Binfield's own 16 - runs the fielding side hands over, added to the batting side's total, and a full 31-run swing in Binfield's favour before a proper shot was played.

Two hundred and eighty-nine was always going to be a mountain, and Henley never began the climb. Ollie Brasier took 3 for 43 and Chris White 2 for 10 to work through the top order, and though Sebastian Lavers made a busy 42 there was no partnership of substance to sustain a chase of that size. Venkatraman then returned to mop up with 3 for 17 - his eight overs the meanest analysis on either side, comfortably under two runs an over - and Henley were all out for 168. The worm, for those who care to read it, told the plainest story of all: Binfield's line sat above Henley's at every single over-mark, a steady widening diagonal with never a flat patch to hint at a wobble.

It leaves the 4th XI handsomely placed - second in Division 8B on 267 points, fifteen behind the Maidenhead Royals at the top and with a game of this authority to show for the afternoon. Henley, gracious in a hard day, will find better ones. Splendidly done.