Always a difficult week for the club as Royal Ascot week leaves the club homeless for 5 days as we’re not allowed to play at our main ground.

Fleet 1 v 1s

The 1s are always on the road in Royal Ascot week and they made the short trip down the M3 into Hampshire to face Fleet. Ascot won the toss and elected to field first.

Fleet started solidly and Nilesh Odera provided some acceleration with a run-a-ball 58 before Andy Murray caught him off the bowling of Kamran Hanif. The innings was built around Oscar Russell’s 83 not out but despite several wickets in hand there was no acceleration towards the end as they made 210 for 6 off 52 overs.

Ascot started well with G K Reddy 42 and Mike Breet 67 giving the innings momentum but after they both fell, the wickets started to become two paced and runs became a lot harder with some variable bounce.

Adam Smith with 33 helped keep the scorecard ticking over but it was left to Andy Murray with 17 not out to see Ascot home by a 2 wicket margin. Karthee Swaran took 4 for 35 for Fleet.

2s v Purley-on-Thames

The 2s were at Locks Ride for their home match against Purley-on-Thames. Purley won the toss and elected to field first.

Ascot made a good total of 177 all out with 2 balls remaining built on several contributions including Jez Wing 41, James Docker 36 and Jacob Parry 32. The wickets were shared among all 6 Purley bowlers.

That total looked even better when Purley found themselves on 52 for 5 thanks to James Summers’ 3 for 51. But then the match just disappeared in a blistering attack by Thangaraj Senniappan with 104 not out including 14 fours and 6 sixes to see Purley ease home with just under 15 overs and 5 wickets in hand.

3s v Bracknell United 4

The 3s played their home match at Warfield CC as the newly merged Bracknell United were the visitors. Ascot won the toss and elected to bat first.

Ascot never really got going and with Ashwin Vasudevan top scoring with 24, Ascot were all out for 117 with more than 10 overs remaining. Rohit Tamar took 3 for 14.

But Ascot looked like they were back in the game as Bracknell United were 12 for 4 and 29 for 5 as Naeem Mohammad took 3 for 8. However, another quick fire innings, this time from Chirag Modi with 34 not out off 24 balls saw Bracknell United home by 4 wickets.

Bushy Park 3 v 4s

The 4s eventually made it to Teddington as they had to contend with the Twickenham rugby traffic and looking at the wrong signs and ending at the wrong cricket club to play Bushy Park 3.

This match saw another little bit of history for the club as Eleanor Warren became the first woman to make her debut for Royal Ascot in a main league fixture.

Ascot won the toss and elected to field first. Bushy Park reached a strong total of 223 for 6 with opener David Hubbard 56 and Arshmann Butt 47 not out the main contributors.

In response, Ascot found the initial going difficult but then a partnership between Toby Dodwell-Bennett 76 and Matt Lambert 29 saw Ascot in with a chance. Tom Dummigan’s rapid 39 not out gave Ascot hope but in the end Bushy Park ended Ascot’s winning streak and won by 24 runs. Jonathan Peachey took 3 for 27 for Bushy Park.