Binfield Cricket Club's 6th XI lost by five wickets to Woking & Horsell CC in a friendly at Sol Joel Park on Saturday 15 August 2026, Ram Devarakonda carrying his bat for 44 not out from 107 balls in a total of 154 all out before Abel Jacob's 60 and Joe Miller's 40 took the visitors home inside 23 overs.

Don't be fooled by the gentle word 'friendly' - there was a good deal of proper cricket at Sol Joel Park on Saturday, and one performance in particular that deserves to be remembered long after the result has been forgotten. Ram Devarakonda batted through the entire Binfield innings, all ten wickets falling at the other end, and finished 44 not out from 107 balls.

For seventeen overs it was going rather well. Devarakonda and Finley Beckford opened with 55 in careful fashion - neither above a run every three balls, but neither in any trouble either - and Woking & Horsell had not taken a wicket. Then the roof came in. Four wickets fell for seven runs between the eighteenth and twentieth overs, three of them in the twentieth alone: Woking's Asim Muhammad bowled Katy Slaughter and Ben Whiter in successive deliveries and Vikram Duraiswamy was run out, and 55 for 1 had become 62 for 5 with the scoreboard barely moving.

Jishnu Grandhi provided the counter-punch, 31 from 26 balls with six fours, and his 43-run stand with Devarakonda for the sixth wicket restored some order; Oscar Farnden later added 30 more alongside the immovable opener. But Binfield were bowled out for 154, and only a hundred of those came off the bat - Woking & Horsell's bowlers and fielders gave away 54 extras, 22 in wides, 21 in byes and 11 in no-balls, which is a startling third of the total handed over without a shot. Asim Muhammad was much the best of their attack with 3 for 19 from seven overs.

The reply made short work of it. Alex Miller and Abel Jacob took the visitors to 38 before Binfield's Ollie Holden bowled Miller, and then Jacob and Joe Miller added 102 for the second wicket at close to a run a ball - Jacob 60 from 63 with eleven fours, Miller 40 from 40 - and the game was effectively gone by the twentieth over. Binfield's Ben Whiter did produce a remarkable little burst at the death, three wickets for six runs from 1.4 overs including Jacob and Huzaifa Khan in the same over, and Katy Slaughter chipped in with the wicket of Shiz Asif, but Woking & Horsell needed only 22.4 overs to pass 154. A hard afternoon, then, but one that gave a young side plenty of cricket and one innings to be genuinely proud of.