The 2024 season comes to the end, with the weather getting the better of the final friendly match of the season, but as many club volunteers know the work continues as we start building up for the 2025 season!

The main project this season was the major fundraising effort for the new outdoor nets and thanks to the efforts of Richard Wyatt, ably supported by Rob Bennett and Andy & Vicky Murray, the work on the new nets started this weekend.

On the field, it has been a good season with strong foundations being built for 2025.

Senior Women

This was our first season for our senior women and it has been a great start with lots of commitment – they were still practicing after the main season finished and a promising start to league cricket with 5th place in the inaugural Berkshire Women’s Softball Division 3 league.

Our first ever match was a Cup match against Reading Lions and in a very close encounter just lost by 1 run – a theme of the season with 6 matches all being decided by the final delivery.

Our first league match saw our first victory over Holyport by 3 runs. Unfortunately, we were on the wrong end of several very close matches but earned a well deserved tie against Earley and always played with a great spirit and commitment in every match.

The side was well led by Louise Maybury. Eleanor Warren was second highest run scorer in the division with 76 and Sophie Murray was eighth highest with 55. Eleanor was also 3rd highest joint wicket taker with 5 and Sarah Howard 6th highest joint wicket taker with 4.

A great start and we look forward to more women joining, and enjoying and playing the game.

Senior Men

So near but so far for the 1s. Despite 10 wins and a 302 point haul which would have won the other Level 4 Division, the 1s finished in 3rd place. It was a great effort with GK Reddy finishing on 594 runs and Mike Breet with 430 runs. Razwan Hanif finished with 32 wickets and Tamoor Hussain 24 wickets, and Dan Mallett finished with 10 wicket keeping dismissals.

The 1s will return and look to strengthen the squad and challenge again in 2025.

The 2s had a somewhat mixed season, finishing 6th, with 8 wins, 1 tie and 8 defeats. They inflicted one of only two defeats against the league champions Aldershot 2s but a lack of consistency meant that they juet fell short of one of the promotion spots.

Ghulam Mirza finished as top scorer with 398 runs with Tom Clarke 333 and James Docker 306 making runs. James Summers was top wicket taker with 18 wickets followed closely by Tom Clarke with 17. Skipper Dan Corsini took 9 catches including 3 in the outfield.

The 3s started the season slowly but finished strongly in third place including a win over league champions Theale & Tilehurst 3. Waqas Ashraf top scored with 281 runs and Waqar Soomro finished with 261 runs. Naeem Mohammad was top bowler in the division with 23 wickets while Sadiq Khan took 17. Hassan Sohail topped the fielding table in the division with 12 catches and 2 run outs. Promotion may still be a possibility with the new league structure in 2025.

The 4s were well led by Elliot Mills and completed a great season with their first ever Division title, finishing with 12 wins out of 16 and winning the title on average points per match.

Elliot led from the front topping the division run charts with 473. Raf Bocchio was top bowler with 21 wickets followed by Mike Wyatt on 13. Elliot Mills and Glen Winning shared the fielding honours with 6 dismissals each.

2025 will see the biggest change in Berkshire league cricket in over a generation as the Berkshire Cricket League and a couple of other leagues merge with the Thames Valley Cricket League. 43 teams will be joining the Thames Valley Cricket League – as it increases from 22 divisions to potentially 32 divisions, and we will see a big shake-up in fixtures and regionalisation going forward.

The Midweek T20 team had a strong season as several new teams entered. After being beaten in the previous two Plate finals, it was third time lucky as we won the Plate Final against a strong Wokingham 2s team by 44 runs.

In the league we finished 2nd, giving a lot of opportunities to young colts to platy senior cricket including Eleanor Warren debuting in our 4th Xl and T20 sides. GK Reddy made 111 runs and Ben Churchyard 105 runs plus 5 catches and a run out while Gowtham Yeramanasetti took 8 wickets.

The Sunday XI won 4 out of their 13 matches, initially led by Rob Bennett and then after injury struck, Tom Clarke took over the reins scoring 287 runs while Larry Hobson took 11 wickets.

Colts

Our colts section continues to grow and we are proud of our pathway from colts to senior cricket which has seen over 25 play in our senior sides this season.

The U11 Girls were the joint winners with Oxford in the Boyne Hill 6-a-side Smash Festival and finished 3rd in their league, while the U13 Girls finished 7th.

The U9 Boys played 16 matches during the season to get a taste of competitive cricket which starts at Under 11 level.

The U10 Boys finished 4th in their very competitive Surrey league. Three U11 Boys teams competed with one team finishing joint top in the Surrey league and another winning the Berkshire East Pairs League.

The U12 Boys finished 2nd in their Surrey competition while four U13 Boys teams competed throughout the season with one team topping the table, a second place and two third place positions and we also entered a mixed team at Under 13 level.

And finally the Under 15s won their Berkshire league and finished 2nd in the Surrey league. In the Berkshire U15 Cup they reached the semi-finals in East Zone.

Overall, the club played over 240 matches during the season, hosted two matches in the first ever Men’s Over 70s World Cup as well as representative matches for Berkshire Over 50s and Over 60s.

Thanks to all the senior captains, colts managers and volunteers and committee members for helping the club run so smoothly, and to Arun for all the work that he has put in on our main ground and advice given to our second ground at Locks Ride.

On the social side there have been many BBQs run by our resident Head Chef – Andy Murray. Thanks to Vicky and Andy, and Glen Winning and Nick Wiggett for a very successful Quiz Night and to everyone who has helped in the bar during the season, especially Mark and Judy Wiggett.

Looking forward

The club is in a very strong position and we’ll be looking at making progress both on and off the field for 2025 and beyond. Winter coaching will start in the New Year so look out for announcements across our social channels and Spond.

The Club Annual Awards Dinner will be at Royal Ascot Golf Club on Saturday 16 November and details will also be sent for our Christmas Drinks get together.

The Club Committee will be meeting regularly to look at future projects and requirements so if you have any suggestions or would like to help out then please reach out to any committee member.

Thank you to everyone who has made this an enjoyable and successful season – and here’s to an even better 2025.