Binfield Cricket Club's 3rd XI lost by four wickets at Waltham St Lawrence on Saturday 15 August 2026, an unbroken last-wicket 44 between Ritesh Shetty and Luke Taylor lifting them to 208 for 9 in a Thames Valley Cricket League (TVCL) Division 6B fixture before Upendra Deshpande's unbeaten-until-late 121 carried Hurst Rangers CC's 2nd XI home with more than five overs to spare.

One man can settle a cricket match, and at Waltham St Lawrence on Saturday one man did. Upendra Deshpande made 121 from 123 balls with nineteen fours, took 3 for 36 with the ball into the bargain, and carried Hurst Rangers' 2nd XI past Binfield's 208 with four wickets and five and a half overs in hand. Some defeats are earned by the opposition rather than given away, and this was very much one of those.

Binfield's own innings was an oddly shapeless thing, full of promising starts that declined to become anything more. Steve Jeffery made 28, Will Kings 23, Harry Jones 19, Andy Mills 17 - seven men reached double figures and not one of them passed 32 - while Hurst Rangers' Anil Kumar and Rangnath Deshpande bowled nine overs apiece for 22 and 25, with two maidens each, meaning four overs in all from which not a single run came. Bryn Davies, the captain, top-scored with 32 from 41 balls and struck two of the innings' three sixes, but when he fell at 164 for 9 in the 40th over a total of any substance looked to have gone with him.

It had not. Luke Taylor, Binfield's wicket-keeper, then found an ally in the lower order, and he and Ritesh Shetty produced the finest passage of the innings: an unbroken 44 for the tenth wicket, both men finishing not out at exactly a run a ball - 28 from 28 and 16 from 16 - with three fours coming in the last over alone. Forty-four runs is better than a fifth of the whole 208, and it turned a modest score into one that at least had to be chased properly.

For nine overs it very nearly was. Binfield's Bill Moffat had Vinesh Vijayakurup caught by Davies in the second over for a duck, Hurst Rangers were 7 for 1, and the worm showed them trailing Binfield's own over-by-over pace through the first third of the reply. Then Deshpande and Yatharth Jain settled in and did not part for twenty-four overs, adding 139 for the second wicket - very nearly two-thirds of the entire Hurst Rangers total - and by the twenty-sixth over the visitors' line had not merely caught Binfield's but left it behind for good.

Will Kings deserves better than a losing scorecard. Having made 23 with the bat he broke the great stand and then ran through what followed, taking 4 for 37 from his nine overs with all four wickets falling between the 26th and 38th - the only genuine cluster of the innings, and the one passage in which Binfield looked capable of a smash-and-grab. By then, though, Deshpande had his hundred and the target was a formality; Rajnish Singh and Rangnath Deshpande saw it home unbroken. Binfield stay third in Division 6B on 254 points from fifteen games, with Hurst Rangers seventh on 198 - and on this evidence the gap is a good deal narrower than the table suggests. Better days lie ahead.