The 1s lost away at Fulmer. Stef Bartlett hit an unbeaten ton (his 6th 50+ score in a row) to lay the foundation of a 1st innings score of 211, but this was assailable by the hosts with the loss of 7 wickets.
The 2's hosted OMT 4 on Saturday. Having lost the toss, the opposition chose to bat first. Our opening batting attack consisted of Zain and Ali Jawad. However, our start wasn't ideal, as Ali Jawad was dismissed early in the innings. The conditions that day were challenging for batting, with overcast conditions and rain prior to the match, making it difficult for batsmen to score freely. OMT's bowlers were remarkable with disciplined bowling, consistently maintaining a tight line and length, which results in not getting the runs easily. Tushar Gajjar, however, played a truly excellent innings, managing to score 50 runs, achieved this by building his innings in a patient manner.
In bowling, Max and Anand delivered an outstanding opening spell. Together, they managed to take 5 quick wickets, restricting the opposition to 50 runs in the process in 7 overs. This early success led us to believe that victory was potentially within our grasp. However, their sixth and seventh batsmen played to their strength. They patiently rebuilt their innings, focusing on minimizing risks and punishing any bad balls that strayed from a good line and length. Despite our efforts to ball, maintaining a tight line and length throughout, we found it exceedingly difficult to break through their partnership. We rotated our bowlers, trying all available bowling options in an attempt to find a breakthrough. Ultimately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to prevent the opposition from reaching their target. In the end, we suffered a defeat, losing the match by 5 wickets with 3 overs remaining.
After a four-week hiatus from league cricket, Chenies & Latimer 3rd XI travelled to Maidenhead for a keenly anticipated return to action. Under grey, brooding skies, Chenies lost the toss and were asked to bat first on a sluggish, underprepared wicket. The rust from their layoff was immediately apparent, as the innings never truly settled into rhythm. From the outset, Chenies’ batsmen struggled to find fluency, the wicket offering little pace or bounce to work with. However, amidst the tumble of wickets and scratchy strokeplay, Mukesh offered a lone beacon of resistance. Composed and resolute, he stood firm as partners fell around him, finishing unbeaten and heartbreakingly short of a well-earned half-century. With a modest total on the board, Chenies looked to their bowlers to spark a turnaround — and Raj obliged instantly, striking in his very first over to give his side a glimmer of hope. Yet, just as quickly as spirits rose, the momentum began to drift away. Maidenhead & Bray’s batsmen began to find their feet, and Chenies looked to be losing their grip. Enter Kannel and Ashish, who combined to apply the brakes with disciplined spells, forcing the opposition into errors and building pressure steadily. The game remained finely poised. Then came the spell of the match — perhaps the spell of the season — from Mark, who tore through the middle order with a magical four-wicket burst that flipped the contest on its head. With each dismissal, belief surged back into the Chenies camp. But cricket can be a cruel game. A few costly dropped chances, and some nervy tail-end runs, allowed Maidenhead & Bray to scrape over the line with just one wicket to spare. A gut-wrenching end to a fiercely contested match, defined by Chenies’ spirited bowling defence. While the result went against them, Chenies 3rd XI can take heart from their fight, grit, and moments of brilliance — particularly with the ball. Onwards and upwards.

Over to Luke for his weekly ramblings: This Sunday we welcomed the Fleet Street Strollers, a touring team with whom I have had the great pleasure of playing many times. Mostly constituted of Kiwis, it was clear that none of them had yet forgiven Ben Stokes the CWC Final. Rons for Ingland! In our game itself, the plucky brits had no such luck. In fact, we got pretty heavily turned over! However, as always it’s not (only) the winning that matters, nor the taking part, but the cock-ups and underdog stories that make Sundays most enjoyable.
The game begun with our skipper losing the toss, so the strollers strolled into the middle for a bat, what happened next was quite horrible! They piled on 335 runs for 4 in 40 overs, with the wickets shared between Donnel and Sheron. Not to worry!That meant that all of us were set to have a bat haha! Dan top scored as aforementioned with a controlled, anchoring innings of 52* including 7 boundaries. What a moment for him - he did us, and of course his head coach Alex Martin, very proud! Unfortunately the man who tucked into his first 50, Dan, stuck AJ on the braai and BBQd him! Unbelievably, Ali-Jawad’s strike rate was actually LOWER than Dan’s - 23.53! The boy was chewing to be fair striking at 30 less than Mr Layzell, so maybe Dan’s move was tactical! The rest of our runs were shared between some good scores of Luke with 27, Donnel with 25 and Dharmendra with 17. The game was a lovely one to be a part of, as it always is against the strollers. This Sunday we take on the Uxbridge casuals in the return leg of our series with them. Most importantly, Mummy Marsden is also making her debut as Tea Lady next Sunday, providing even more reason to get your availability down!

Next week the 1st XI host High Wycombe, the 2nd XI travel to Phoenix and the 3s visit Chesham 5s. After a week's break the Women 1st XI visit Slough and the Sunday XI host Uxbridge Casuals.

Colts:
The colts season is up and running with the usual vibrancy at Chenies on Sunday mornings alongside the sunshine.

As we near the school holidays the colts leagues are wrapping up. The silverware continues to pile up. The U11 Lightning, U11 Thunder and U12 Lions have all secured league titles. Apologies to any teams I’ve missed, but a full summary of our colts teams performances will be published soon.

Summer Camps - see the news article regarding the summer camps running at the club this year.

Colts managers – please do send in your match reports for inclusion in the bulletin

Teas / coffees and cakes will be on sale every Sunday morning in the pavilion. All cakes are home-made by Zaynab Haq and all proceeds will go directly to the club. We have a card payment machine so please do avail yourself of the fayre on sale, and save yourself the trip to the coffee shop on the way to the club.

In other news:
2025 Subscriptions are now due and available on the website. Thanks to those that have already paid. Full details at this link https://www.chenies-cricket.org/a/subscriptions-46652.html Please pay promptly and early, many of the club running costs are loaded to this time of the year so we do need funds to be coming in so that we can maintain a healthy cash flow. Also remember that you are not insured via the club if you have not paid your subscription.
Overseas Player - We are delighted that we will have the services of a fast bowler from Grenada this year. We have sorted accommodation for him but just need a job. He is looking for manual work – if you can help out please reach out to Stef Saleem on 07780 530300
Personal Coaching – if you want to find that next level in your game from personalised 1:1 coaching then reach out to Roshan Dias on 07427 926943 or visit his website here

An appeal for further help to run the club
Our wonderful club has seen unprecedented growth over the past few years. Credit goes to everyone at the club for facilitating this, but special credit goes to the management committee for working so hard to develop and grow the club.
The downside to this is that the workload upon the committee has also grown such that it is no longer possible for our officials to cope and run the club efficiently or effectively.
We are therefore appealing for members to come forward to help.
The first appeal is for someone to take up the position of Sponsorship Manager: Sponsorship is a significant yet untapped opportunity for funding at our club. We are looking for someone to manage and nurture our existing sponsors, and to proactively work to develop new sponsorship partnerships. The role could easily be shared among 2 or 3 people. If you are interested please speak to Dave Brown or Simon Hargreaves.
Our mantra is ‘many hands make light work’ and we are looking for 2, 3 or 4 people in each of the following areas to form a small team working with the committee member responsible for that area. None of these are committee positions so you don’t have to worry about coming along to meetings; all we’re asking is to get involved and help out in a way that suits you:

Area	Committee Member	No. People required
Website / Membership	Dave Brown	2-3
BFN & Events, plus planning for the club’s 150th Anniversary	Rohin Modasia	3-4
Funding / Grants	Nick Walker	2-3

Our bar is going from strength to strength under the stewardship of Mick French. But he can’t be there all the time and if we are going to open more frequently with publicised hours then we’ll need volunteers to take on shifts behind the bar. If you’re interested in joining a group of volunteers who could take on shifts occasionally then please contact Mick (mickbeernut@gmail.com / 07771 866370)
An intra club Fantasy Cricket game has been set up by Alex Walker. These are great fun – you just pick a team of 6 from the club’s players and see how their points rack up for your team based upon performances. Entry is just £3. Go to http://chenies-latimer.fantasyclubcricket.co.uk/. Player prices will change each week based on form and anyone not in the database yet will be added automatically once they play a league game.
Instagram – some great work behind the scenes has revived our Instagram account and we’ll be posting regularly and aften throughout the season. Please follow us @chenieslatimercc and @chenieswomenscricket

Also make sure you have downloaded the club app and have your Pitchero account profile set up to receive communications from the club. More details here

For all club kit and clothing requirements, please visit https://www.chenies-cricket.org/a/club-kit-58457.html and contact Dave Brown to order.

Our kit supplier, Chiltern Sports, are also open if you need to acquire any playing equipment. They are well stocked with Shoes, bats, helmets, pads and gloves plus all other playing accessories that you might need. Call the shop on 01296 613399 or Richard Young on 07831 662874.