Lincoln drops anchor as Slough defy their closest rivals
There was a great eagerness from Burnham and Slough’s players to defy Saturday's poor weather forecast and get a match on, and this they achieved with Slough claiming victory by 37 runs.
Rizwan Nadeem’s Burnham have had the happy knack of getting the better of their closest rivals in recent matchups, but on a rain-affected afternoon it was Nadeem Syed’s muchchanged side who held their nerve.
Wicketkeeper Dan Lincoln anchored the visitors to their impressive total of 2377 from 45 overs, making 97 not out from 125 balls. There was support from Kamran Younas (36) and Naveed Akhtar (33), while, despite the conditions, Burnham struggled to make inroads with Muddassar Nawaz finishing with their best figures of 2-26.
In reply wickets fell at regular intervals as Burnham finished on 201-9 from their 45 overs.
Sulaiman Javed gave the home side hope with a quickfire 71 from 55 balls, but with Syed (2-48), Raja Nawaz (2-18), Younas (2-49) and Aashir Zaib (2-31) all in decent form with the ball, Burnham fell well short of their target.
W Datchet dodged the rain showers to get their season off to a flyer with a threewicket win over Oxford at the Wally Gage Memorial Ground on Saturday.
The weather thwarted most team’s chances of a result on Saturday afternoon but not Joe Barrett’s Datchet who restricted their visitors to 135-8 off 25 overs before chasing them down for the loss of seven wickets in 23.4 overs.
Steven Naylor (4-12) took the wind from Oxford’s batting sails as the visitors were reduced to 95-4 after making a reasonable start. Muhammad Ayub was their top scorer with 30 before he departed lbw to Naylor. Elliot Matthews was run out by Barrett for 13 and Sulaiman Akhtar (2-29) took the wickets of Harvey Jupp (23) and Jimmy Mugnaioni (lbw for nine).
In reply Datchet were indebted to a particularly fine batting display from Calvin Dickinson (61) who rescued an under-par start with the bat and put the home side on the road to victory.
Billy Mead also made a useful 37 batting further up the order.