Home Counties: Wargrave take sizeable bite out of points penalty with second straight win

Dan Lincoln

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Bottom of the table Wargrave have already taken a sizeable chunk out of their points penalty after sealing their second win of the campaign with a 64-run success over Harefield on Saturday.

Neal Robinson’s side were handed a 70-point penalty for a player registration ‘infraction’ by the Home Counties league, a decision which looked like it might well rob them of any chance of competing with Division 1’s top sides.

However, they’ve backed up last weekend’s 84-run win over Finchampstead with another very encouraging display against Harefield and they’re now only 23 points away from moving onto out of the black and into the red for the current campaign. Had they not been docked points they’d have been sitting at the top alongside the likes of High Wycombe, Banbury and Henley.

Two home encounters have surely helped kick-start the campaign, but they took full advantage of those comforts on Saturday, putting on a magnificent 250-9 from their 50 overs with the bat before bowling their visitors out for 186 in 49.5 overs.

Thankfully their top order was once again firing, with Toby Greatwood (37), Euan Woods (78) and Dan Lincoln (41) ensuring the scoreboard raced along at a rapid pace. Harefield were able to slow that progression, with Tom Marshall (2-43), Charlie Dale (2-56) and Matthew Ogden (2-29) taking a couple of wickets each as Wargrave went from 140-4 to 250-9.

Harefield also made a solid start at the crease, but they were always behind the run rate set by their hosts. Thomas McLeod top scored with 44 but John Child had an excellent day with the ball for Wargrave, taking 4-30, including the wickets of McLeod, Ogden (24) and Karanpreet Singh (4). Robinson’s men face a stiff test of their positive start when they head to leaders High Wycombe on Saturday.

W Slough were beaten for the first time this season as they were chased down for a three-wicket defeat by visitors Wokingham, having managed just 142 all out with the bat.

Having lost the toss and been put into bat, captain Nadeem Syed will have been desperately disappointed by the application shown by his batsmen as they managed to play out just 36 of their allotted 50 overs.

Openers Sahaan Sahaan (14) and Rahim Ahktar (23) began reasonably well, and the collapse from 16-1 to 35-4 couldn’t be salvaged by Lesbourne Edwards on this occasion. He top scored with 44 but few of his teammates were able to get set in a similar manner and Jacob Clark took 3-42 in an extremely accurate and disruptive spell of bowling from Wokingham.

With knowledge of their own wicket, Slough heaped the pressure on with the ball, reducing Wokingham to 20-5, however, Jayden Barson scored an unbeaten 67 from 102 balls to guide the visitors over the line with the help of Jacob Clark (14) and Sukhmeet Kang (13) while Max Uttley was also unbeaten at the end on 10. They reached 146-7 in 40.5 overs.

Slough return to action at Aston Rowant on Saturday. They’re fifth after three weekends.