Windsor do promotion chances no harm at all

Reading 137-9 (Birch 20-3, Subarker 46-3)
Windsor 138-1 (Chorley 76*, Wing 41*)

In what is a big fortnight for Windsor 2’s season they completed the first half by comprehensively walloping Reading on a day fit for Kings at the Home Park. The toss now seems to hold no fear for Windsor as they made it 2 wins on the trot and deciding to keep things in their own hands asked Reading to bat first on what looked like a very flat deck.

Back from wedding activities Alex Hill opened with Chris Edge and the Laurel and Hardy duo got back into their familiar ways making runs hard to come by and being backed up by some superb outfielding Reading never really got going. The scorer of 150 superb runs against Windsor earlier in the season Alex Ball couldn’t have done much worse as Edge ripped out his middle stump and not to be outdone Hill did exactly the same to Cowan to put Windsor in control. Walder scored a painfully slow 6 as Ali attempted to rebuild the innings as an hour of crazy cricket ensued. Chris Edge dropped possibly the easiest chance known to cricket then made up for it taking one of the hardest off Amit Subarker. Ali was dropped by Stephen Eggenhuizen behind and when looking set paddled the ball straight to Nigel Wing at slip although most bizarrely Oliver Birch, playing only his second game of the season took Trout’s middle stump out of the ground first ball on a noball, promptly marched back to his mark and the very next ball took out his off stump. The upshot of all of this was that Reading thanks to constant Windsor pressure were reduced to 78-8. However, the tail whilst not actually wagging in the widest sense did show some signs of life and showed some resistance that was lacking in the top order. Hill was recalled but Windsor continued to strangle the runs as Reading completed their 52 overs on 137-9 somewhat 100 runs away from par for the course.

Enter a man with a point to prove. Andy Chorley after studying for a law degree for most of the season signalled his intent for the rest of it by playing a commanding and almost brutal innings. Commanding in that the first ball he faced was creamed through extra cover for 4, as were the first 10 of his 13 scoring shots – brutal in the way he turned his back on an ‘optimistic’ single from Abdul Ashraf to see him depart for 7 but this only brought Nigel Wing to the crease who following Chorley’s example thrashed the bowling around the park. It was a joy to watch for everyone except perhaps Robert Woodward who elevated up the batting order to 4 was looking for his first innings of the season but even he couldn’t be too disappointed as the pair passed the total in 31^st over with Chorley scoring 78 and Wing 41.

And so to 2^nd place Slough next week. A losing draw at home to them last year ultimately saw Windsor miss out on promotion so with revenge on their minds Upton Court should see a great game of cricket next weekend.

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