Binfield Cricket Club's Friendly XI won by four wickets away at Sonning CC on Sunday 23 August 2026, bowling the hosts out for 193 - Ollie Brasier's 3 for 24 driving a collapse of six wickets for 24 runs - and then chasing the target down through Will Kings, unbeaten on 62, an answer to the 62 Sonning's Jacob Fitton had made in the afternoon's first act.

My dear old thing, when two innings are each crowned by a 62 you may be sure the afternoon owed nobody anything. Sonning's Jacob Fitton made his from 84 balls in the first act and was caught and bowled by Jacob Whiddett; Binfield's Will Kings made his from 76 in the second and was still there, quite undefeated, when the winning boundary arrived in the thirty-sixth over. Between those book-ends sat a thoroughly absorbing away-day friendly played almost entirely along the carpet - 59 fours between the two sides, and just one six in the whole match.

Sonning, who had won the toss and chosen to bat, were 58 for 3 when Fitton found his ally: an 84-run fourth-wicket stand with Kishan Akula (36 from 39), the biggest partnership of the entire match, that carried the hosts to 142 and threatened a total well beyond 200. Then came the turn. Whiddett had Fitton caught and bowled at 169, and the last six wickets tumbled for 24 runs in a little over six overs. Ollie Brasier's seven overs cost just 24 runs for 3 wickets - two of them maidens, overs from which not a run escaped - and his final over of the innings took two wickets by itself. Mitesh Patel's two overs were a small marvel of their own, 2 for 11, while Harry Short had struck twice early, removing Charles Astwood and Robert Jones. From 169 for 4, Sonning were all out 193 with four overs of their allocation unused.

The chase promptly manufactured its own scare: 20 for 2 inside seven overs, Joshua Snelling leg-before to Robert Jones and Mitesh Patel bowled by Isaac Jenner. Enter the rebuild. Whiddett's brisk 23 - five fours in it - put on 34 with Will Kings; Mat Kings added 44 more with his namesake; Carter Daines's punchy 26 from 29 was worth another 39. And when Fitton returned to take both Daines and Short - 2 for 18 from six overs with two maidens, the thriftiest bowling of Sonning's day stacked on top of his 62 - Binfield stood at 153 for 6 with 41 still wanted, and the game was properly alive.

Will Kings simply declined to be hurried by any of it. Ten fours in his unbeaten 62 - 40 of his runs in boundaries - and an unbroken seventh-wicket stand of 44 with Ollie Brasier, who followed his 3 for 24 with a cool 18 not out: the all-round double of the day on the winning side. The end came at 35.2 overs, a boundary off Edward Duvall, whose late spell had leaked 31 from fourteen deliveries as Binfield accelerated home.

The run charts tell it rather beautifully: Sonning's line rides above Binfield's through the long middle of the afternoon on the back of Fitton's innings, then goes very nearly flat as the collapse bit - 169 after thirty overs became only 193 - while Binfield's climbed steadily until the two lines crossed in the thirty-fourth over and never met again. One wonders what a target of 220 might have asked of this chase; Sonning's tail never let the question be posed. The extras column lent its quiet hand too: Binfield were given 35 - wides, no-balls, byes and leg-byes, runs the fielding side concedes without a stroke played, 23 of them byes - against the 23 Binfield's own fielding effort returned.

A word for the hosts, whose skipper Richard Skeil struck the match's only six in a brisk 11, and whose wicket-keeper Neil Jasti made 22 before Brasier trapped him leg-before: Sonning were generous opponents and their 193 took some getting. But this was Binfield's day - two rescues, a collapse forced, a chase completed with hands steady - and the Friendly XI took the long road home from Sonning wreathed in smiles.