Hurley hold out for draw with Binfield

Hurley’s Sunday XI continued their unbeaten start to the season with a draw against Binfield at Shepherds Lane.

Batting first the visitors declared on 201-4 in the 44th over but, despite coming close, they were unable to remove all of Hurley’s batsmen as the hosts closed on 162-8 in reply.

Skipper Mo Basharat opened the attack for Hurley and struck with his fifth delivery to remove Tom Harvey for a duck, Hamzah Zaman taking the catch.

The batsmen found runs hard to come by initially, but Matt (49) and Isaac Humphrey (60no) set about building their innings until Matt was removed by Joe Graham with the score on 66 in the 19th over.

Chris Morgan (25) added 41 for the third wicket with Humphrey before an unbeaten partnership between Tom Nower (50no) and Humphrey took Binfield to a teatime declaration of 201-4.

The scoreboard was slow to get moving in Hurley’s reply, with the hosts reaching 17 in eight overs. Floundering a little on 17-2 Josh Cole (46) continued his good form, adding 38 for the third wicket with Shoaib Kayani (22).

After taking a few deliveries to get his eye in Mandeep Singh launched an assault on the bowling, scoring four consecutive boundaries off Antony Hesketh (047), including a massive six. He and Cole put Hurley in a decent position, needing 96 to win from the final 20 overs, but Nower (2-21) got rid of Cole with a wicketmaiden and Zaman (0) was run out without facing a ball. When Joe Graham departed on 14 it was left to see if Singh could still force a victory batting with the tail. However, Zoe Docherty (1-20) put paid to that, having Singh caught at point off the first delivery of her second spell. Liam Cole (1) was bowled by Kali-Ann Docherty (2-17), but Bert Simon (1no) and Mike Walton (5no) saw out the remaining overs without alarm.