Windsor wilt with the willow

Sportsdesk • Published 4 Aug 2010 09:30 0 Comments

Cricket

A POOR batting performance sent Windsor to their seventh Thames Valley Division One defeat of the season last weekend at the hands of Basingstoke & North Hants.

Setting a target of just 80, Wes Nichols' side lost to the former Home Counties outfit by three wickets. The result means they have slipped further into relegation trouble.

Windsor's innings could not have got off to a worse start as Oliver Birch, Arrie Van Der Merwe, and Wes Van Den Berg produced just two runs between them putting the score on 6-3.

Captain Nichols (30) and Adam Weston (25) put on 60 before the former was trapped in front by Jonathan Bradley.

Weston's wicket fell shortly after to Martyn James and the rest of the batting order could only add another 14 runs to the score.

Amazingly, Basingstoke kept the same bowling attack going throughout. James produced a career best of 6-31 off 14 overs and Bradley finished on 4-43 after 13.

Windsor's defence did get off to a good start as both Basingstoke openers were dismissed with the score on 14.

However, that brought Daniel Coombes to the crease and it was his unbeaten 41 off 51 balls that saw Basingstoke home.

Nichols' men battled hard as Ben Harris (3-9), right, and Tom Hartridge (2-27) took enough wickets to keep them in with a chance. Coombes eventually hit the winning runs after 23 overs to record the home side's fifth win of the campaign.

Nichols said: "We simply didn't score enough runs. After we won the toss we decided to bat first. The deck was under prepared as we had to use a reserve strip due to a county game. It was not ideal.

"I would have liked us to have got 140/150 runs but we had some pretty poor dismissals to be honest. Bat and pad not together things like that.

"Our bowling was not a problem, we just needed another 40 or 50 runs."

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This article appeared in Royal Borough Observer 06 Aug 10

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