Binfield Cricket Club's 5th XI won by 135 runs at home on Saturday 22 August 2026, a 174-run fourth-wicket stand between Tatiana Sumares (78 not out) and Vikram Duraiswamy (72) powering them to 291 for 4 in a Thames Valley Cricket League (TVCL) Division 9D fixture before Phebe Salter's 5 for 29 and Zoë Docherty's immaculate 3 for 15 bowled Maidenhead & Bray out for 156.

My dear old things, what a partnership. For the better part of twenty overs on Saturday, Tatiana Sumares and Vikram Duraiswamy batted Maidenhead & Bray clean out of the contest, and by the time they were parted Binfield's 5th XI had turned a modest platform into a total of 291 and, in due course, a win by a thumping 135 runs.

It had not looked so simple at the outset. Evie Folwell (36) and Peter Henly (41) gave the innings a brisk opening stand of 93, but the stand was broken and three wickets tumbled for fifteen runs - Folwell, Henly and Charlie Miles (5) all back inside the twentieth over, 93 without loss becoming 108 for 3 - and for a moment Binfield were becalmed. Enter the fourth-wicket pair. Sumares and Duraiswamy added 174 together, very nearly three-fifths of the entire total: Duraiswamy the more expansive, 72 from 59 balls with a dozen fours; Sumares the busier, unbeaten on 78 from 68, nine fours and a strike rate of better than a run a ball. Duraiswamy was bowled three balls into the final over with the total already past 280, and Sumares saw it through to 291 for 4, Jishnu Grandhi unbeaten on 4 at the other end.

Maidenhead & Bray's bowling was generous to a fault, gifting Binfield 55 extras - the runs a fielding side hands over, added to the batting total - of which 26 came in wides alone; but Binfield scarcely needed the charity, 34 fours flowing from the bat and better than half of Binfield's runs off the bat struck to the boundary. It was, all told, an emphatic piece of batting from a side well worth its place in mid-table.

The chase of 292 was effectively over inside a single over. Phebe Salter, opening the bowling, took two wickets in her first over to reduce Maidenhead & Bray to 6 for 2, and went on to figures of 5 for 29 - a five-wicket haul built on sheer accuracy. At the other end Zoë Docherty was immaculate, three wickets for 15 from her eight overs with two maidens, at under two an over. There was a neat symmetry to the afternoon: the visitors reached 108 for 6 - the very score at which Binfield had themselves been three down - but where Binfield had a Sumares and a Duraiswamy to rescue them, Maidenhead & Bray had no such answer, and slid to 156 all out.

Ali Khan top-scored for the visitors with a spirited 33 and Ian Hanlon made 23, but a side yet to win a game in Division 9D all season was always likely to find 292 beyond it. The win leaves Binfield's 5th XI in mid-table, fifth of nine. An emphatic afternoon, and a stand that will be talked about at Desborough for a good while yet.