1s v Falkland 2

The 1st XI welcomed Falkland to the Racecourse and, for half the afternoon at least, everything was going rather nicely.

Falkland batted first and Royal Ascot kept things impressively tight throughout their 50 overs. Tamoor Hussain set the tone with an excellent spell of 1 for 17 from nine overs, including three maidens, while Nick Wiggett chipped in with 2 for 14 from six.

The star with the ball, though, was Steven Naylor, who worked his way through the Falkland middle and lower order to finish with a superb 5 for 49 from 15 overs.

Falkland opener Tom Seaward provided the backbone of their innings with 50, while Oscar Fry made a patient 44 not out, but wickets continued to fall around them. Ascot eventually dismissed the visitors for 170 from exactly 50 overs.

A target of 171 looked very gettable.

Sadly, Falkland’s bowlers had other ideas.

Dan Mallett began positively with 21 from 31 balls, but wickets started to fall regularly. Ascot slipped to 31 for 3 and, although Naylor briefly threatened to add some batting heroics to his afternoon with two boundaries in an eight-ball 8, he soon became Gul Faraz Afridi’s third victim with a peach of a delivery.

At 43 for 4, Ascot needed someone to rebuild and Kamran Hanif did his best to do exactly that. He dug in for 31 from 54 balls, the highest score of the innings, while Joe Warren later added 16, including the only six of the Ascot innings.

Unfortunately, there was simply no sustained partnership to drag the chase back on course.

Falkland used only three bowlers all afternoon. Afridi was outstanding with 5 for 39, while Jaipal Powell took 4 for 29 and Sam Croft the remaining wicket.

Ascot were eventually bowled out for 103 in 36.3 overs, giving Falkland victory by 67 runs.

A frustrating afternoon, particularly after such a strong performance with the ball. Naylor’s five-for deserved rather more reward, but dismissing a side for 170 and then being bowled out for 103 leaves a fairly straightforward item on next week’s team meeting agenda:

Score more runs.

Windsor 2 v 2s

The 2nd XI made the short trip to Windsor, won the toss and elected to bat — a decision which looked considerably better before anyone actually started batting.

Thomas Brooke provided a positive start, striking five boundaries in his 29 from 34 balls, but wickets were already proving rather too easy to come by at the other end.

James Docker departed with the score on 17 before Brooke followed at 34, and although Jeremy Wing struck three boundaries in a brisk 15, Ascot soon found themselves in some difficulty.

From 51 for 2, things deteriorated to 51 for 4, then 56 for 5 and finally 64 for 6.

At this point, someone needed to change the mood.

Enter Jonah Lambert.

Lambert decided that defence was unlikely to solve the problem and went firmly in the opposite direction, smashing 41 from just 26 balls, including nine fours. His counter-attacking innings dragged Ascot from 64 for 6 to within sight of something defendable and was comfortably the highlight of the innings.

Irfan Lone added 9, while at the other end Tim Howson produced one of cricket’s more magnificent statistical curiosities — 0 from 22 balls.

Twenty-two deliveries. Not one run.

Geoffrey Boycott would have been demanding a replay.

Lambert eventually fell with the score on 120 and the final wickets followed quickly, leaving Ascot all out for 122 from 26 overs.

Windsor shared the wickets around, with Leopold Ziemkendorf taking 3 for 31, while Chris Dixon and Eddie Welch picked up two apiece.

Defending 122 was always going to require an exceptional start.

And Ascot briefly got one.

Having spent 22 deliveries steadfastly refusing to trouble the scorers with the bat, Howson immediately made himself rather more popular with ball in hand, removing Anique Butt for 5 and finishing with an excellent 1 for 17 from four overs.

At 5 for 1, there was at least a glimmer.

Unfortunately, that proved to be the last wicket Windsor were prepared to donate.

Pankaj Garg and Chris Dixon proceeded to put together an unbeaten partnership of 118, with Garg making 53 not out and Dixon 52 not out.

Dixon was particularly destructive, hitting six fours and three sixes, as Windsor reached 123 for 1 in just 19.3 overs to complete a nine-wicket victory.

There was some economical bowling amongst the damage — Irfan Lone conceded just nine runs from his four overs — but with only 122 on the board, Ascot had very little room for error.

A disappointing result, although Lambert’s 41 and Howson’s bowling provided a couple of bright spots.

And Tim can at least claim one particularly unusual achievement from the afternoon:

He took more wickets than he scored runs.

Cove 3 v 3s

The 3rd XI travelled to Southwood Playing Fields to face Cove, won the toss and decided to bat first.

The innings started brightly enough, with Hassan Sohail making 10 from just seven balls and Abdul Rehman Raja hitting four boundaries in his 18, but three quick wickets left Ascot wobbling at 33 for 3.

What was required was a rebuild, and Shivam Sinha and Usman Mumtaz provided exactly that.

The pair added 50 for the fourth wicket, with Sinha making an excellent 33 from 40 balls, including seven fours, and Mumtaz contributing 21 from 28.

At 83 for 3, Ascot had repaired much of the early damage.

Unfortunately, Cove then began dismantling it again.

Mumtaz departed at 83, Sinha followed at 89 and, when Muhammad Saria was dismissed at 101, Ascot were once again looking for someone to drag the innings towards a competitive total.

Ashwin Vasudevan took up the challenge, making a valuable 23 from 36 balls, but wickets continued to tumble around him.

Cove’s Richard Swannell did most of the damage, taking an excellent 4 for 11 from four overs, while Rohit Suresh and James Hammond claimed two wickets apiece.

Ascot were eventually bowled out for 132 in 31 overs.

It wasn’t a large total.

But someone clearly forgot to tell the Ascot bowlers.

Muhammad Saria produced a superb opening spell and suddenly Cove were 2 for 2. Chris Ankers and Omer Farooq had both gone, Farooq without scoring, and 132 was briefly beginning to look considerably larger than it had thirty minutes earlier.

Cricket is wonderfully optimistic at 2 for 2.

Sadly, it is somewhat less so after a 76-run partnership.

Alastair Gibbs and James Simkins steadied the innings, refusing to be drawn into the general enthusiasm for losing wickets. Simkins made a patient 30 from 72 balls, while Gibbs anchored the chase from the other end.

Ascot finally made the breakthrough when Naeem Mohammad removed Simkins, and there was still a little late encouragement as Usman Mumtaz picked up two wickets.

Mumtaz finished with an excellent 2 for 14 from 5.5 overs, while Saria returned 2 for 30.

But Gibbs remained.

He carried his bat for 57 not out from 87 balls, guiding Cove to 133 for 5 in 33.5 overs and a five-wicket victory.

So another frustrating defeat, but Ascot certainly made Cove work for it. Having been bowled out for 132, reducing the opposition to 2 for 2 and eventually taking five wickets represented a decent fight.

4s v Cove 4

If the first three Royal Ascot sides had found runs rather hard to come by, the 4th XI clearly decided to compensate for everybody else.

Cove won the toss at Locks Ride and elected to bat, but Raf Bocchio made sure they didn’t have things entirely their own way. He produced a great spell of 2 for 16 from eight overs, including three maidens, while Arun Chandrasekaran also picked up two wickets.

Cove were 37 for 3 at one stage and Ascot had every reason to feel pleased with proceedings.

Unfortunately, Cove then remembered they were playing a 40-over game rather than a 15-over one.

Dush Patel helped rebuild with 35, before Umar Chaudhry made an unbeaten 43 from 46 balls. The real acceleration came later, with Seth Turton smashing 36 from just 14 balls, including five fours and two sixes, and Robert Ankers adding 35.

Harry Winning removed both Connor McIldeer and Turton to finish with 2 for 52, while Heston Charlton and Zack Folly also collected a wicket apiece.

Cove eventually finished on a formidable 239 for 9 from their 40 overs.

There were 27 extras along the way, including 19 wides, so Ascot could perhaps console themselves that they had generously contributed to the entertainment.

Chasing 240 required a good start.

Ascot instead opted for the slightly more challenging route of being 31 for 3.

Ishaan Banerjee made 11 and Murray Baxter 14, but when Zack Folly departed without scoring, the chase was already in need of some fairly substantial repair work.

Piriyan Subrahmaniyam made 17 and Cedric Cooray 12, but by the time Ascot slipped to 96 for 5, Cove appeared to have the game under control.

Then Harry Winning entered a different mode entirely.

He began attacking the Cove bowling and, despite wickets continuing to fall at the other end, dragged Ascot back into the contest.

When Heston Charlton departed, Ascot were 137 for 7 and still needed 103 runs.

With just three wickets remaining, it looked a very long way away.

Enter Louis Peters.

Peters joined Winning and the pair launched a quite remarkable counter-attack. Winning raced to 79 from 61 balls,hitting 14 fours, while Peters hammered an unbeaten 43 from only 31 deliveries, with six boundaries of his own.

Suddenly a game that had looked finished was very much alive.

The pair took Ascot all the way from 137 for 7 to 224 for 7, an 87-run partnership that left Cove wondering how a comfortable afternoon had turned into quite such an uncomfortable one.

Sadly, time and deliveries were running out, and Winning was run out for 79.

Given his surname, this felt particularly unfair.

Ascot managed one more run to finish on 225 for 8 from their 40 overs, falling just 14 runs short of what would have been a superb victory.

So it was defeat, but easily the closest contest of a difficult afternoon for the club. From 137 for 7, Winning and Peters very nearly produced something extraordinary.

And after three previous defeats earlier in the day, the 4s at least ensured Royal Ascot’s supporters could spend the final hour doing something they hadn’t experienced much of that Saturday:

Believing we might actually win one.