Binfield Cricket Club's 3rd XI lost by 67 runs away at Littlewick Green CC on Saturday 22 August 2026, chasing a formidable 372 in a Thames Valley Cricket League (TVCL) Division 6B fixture after Moshin Rasheed's unbeaten 136 and Ali Shahrukh's 92 from 40 balls had carried the hosts to a huge total; Jack Beaven's 78 not out and 49 from Will Kings gave the reply real substance, but 305 for 8 fell short.

Three hundred and seventy-two is a great many runs to chase on a Saturday afternoon, and to Binfield's considerable credit the 3rd XI made a proper contest of it at Littlewick Green before falling 67 short. That they got as close as 305 owed everything to a defiant lower-middle order; that they had so much to do in the first place owed everything to two innings of quite brutal ambition.

Binfield had won the toss and chosen to field, and for a while the decision looked a sound one: Littlewick Green were 126 for 4 in the twenty-fourth over, Nanda Devaiah's watchful 55 the only innings of real substance, and Binfield's Bill Moffat had bowled beautifully for his 3 for 36. Then Moshin Rasheed and Ali Shahrukh took the game by the scruff of its neck. Their fifth-wicket stand was worth 137, and Shahrukh's share of it - 92 from just 40 balls, seven fours and nine sixes, striking at 230 - was as clean and violent a piece of hitting as Binfield will have met all season. Rasheed, unbeaten on 136 from 88 balls with twenty fours and four sixes of his own, simply never stopped, and 372 for 9 was the eventual damage.

There was a splendid Binfield postscript to the innings. Harry Jones, handed a single over at the death, took 3 wickets for 4 runs - three of the last four Littlewick Green wickets, two of them without scoring - a burst that at least spared Binfield a still more punishing total. Littlewick Green's score was swollen, too, by 31 extras conceded by Binfield in the field, 22 of them in byes - the runs a fielding side hands over, added to the batting total - a chastening figure on so long a day.

Binfield's reply was full of enterprise and, for a long while, genuine hope. Captain Jack Green and Mehul Garg opened with 58, and there were rapid, eye-catching cameos all down the order - Andy Mills 26 from just 13 balls, Jaden Slaughter 32 from 20, both striking at better than 150 - but nobody could quite convert a start into the long innings a chase of 372 demands. Will Kings came closest, 49 from 56, out agonisingly short of a deserved fifty. When the seventh wicket fell Binfield still had a mountain to climb, and it was left to Jack Beaven to supply the day's most level-headed batting.

Beaven finished unbeaten on 78 from 60 balls, eight fours and three sixes, carrying the tail through the last five partnerships and hauling Binfield to a thoroughly respectable 305 for 8 - better than four-fifths of what had been asked, a total that flattered nobody but the winners. Moshin Rasheed, not content with 136, returned to take 4 for 57, dismissing both Binfield openers and running through the middle order - an all-round performance of the kind that decides a match on its own. Binfield sit third in Division 6B, and 305 is, in most weeks, a total that comfortably wins a game of cricket. Better fortune next time.