Friendly XI vs Warfield CC, Saturday Friendly XI

After months of waiting, cricket is back for the 2025 season.

Of course, that means the weeks of glorious warm weather have now ended, and it is both wet and cold, but cricket is back.

The first friendly match of the season was held on Saturday at Stanlake Meadow.

The opposition was our good chums at Warfield who are always welcome at the Home of Cricket.

The match marked the start of a new era under the captaincy of Tom Powell.

The self-proclaimed “Geoff Boycott of Berkshire cricket” will be running the Second XI this year, and we hope his batting is slightly quicker and less self-indulgent than that of his hero.

TRCC won the toss and Powell elected to bat.

And soon after this wise decision, we saw our first 50 of the season.

Congratulations to the ever-classy Angus Weir for his 50*.

The rest of the batters all chipped in, with James West unbeaten on 26.

This was at the expense of poor Benji Stickley, who he ran out after hitting the ball straight to a fielder and calling an impossible run.

A valuable lesson to the young batter - Don’t assume the older players have any idea what they’re doing.

TRCC finished on 191-8 after 35 overs.

Warfield’s innings began with opener Goff dismissed by Ben Nichols for 0.

But the rest of the order chipped in with some decent scores.

However, wickets continued to fall and, ultimately, the visitors fell short of what was a pretty decent early-season total.

The pick of the bowlers was the veteran Spence Nichols, who won a week of bragging rights in the Nichols household with 3-16.

Sami Talukdar recorded figures of 2-24 and West made up for his run out with 2-20.

Powell was delighted with the performance and will be looking for more of the same at Farley Hill this Saturday.