The Pre-Season Report

As we round up our pre-season for 2024, we are in possibly the strongest position the club has seen in some years.

We’ve got an excellent blend of youth and experience in the senior section, which stands us in good stead across all 23 playing sides, both junior and senior, that will take the field throughout the season.

Our Women's programme accelerated faster than we ever imagined, with an U15 girl’s side entered into the Bucks League and the Super 8s and softball leagues for 2024. It’s a fantastic achievement led by our Technical Director, Chris Burnard, who has worked tirelessly to provide a Women's section, growing from just 3 members last summer to 25 members across the club.

Following a highly successful winter programme implemented by Director of Senior Cricket Shaun Coker, Chris Burnard and Director of Junior Cricket Tyler Armiger, each team trained at least once a week with a mixture of nets and fielding sessions. We have come into the outside season in a very strong position. As a club, we’d like to thank all three Directors of Cricket, along with the age group coaches for their tireless work in delivering outstanding cricket

The adoption of Pitchero across the club has been excellent. This has made organising training, availability, selection and communication far easier than it ever has been. We would like to thank all members who have supported this rollout.

Since we ventured outside, the weather has been awful. That being said, thanks to the work of Slicers and Dave and a few volunteers who helped get the sheets on and off regularly, we have managed to produce not one but two wickets for the first weekend: a testament to the quality of our groundsman and our top-class facilities with excellent drainage. You won’t find many clubs in England playing that weekend with the weather we had at the time.

The quality of training across the club, with our 60+ senior members, 25 women members and 170+ junior members, has been outstanding. The turnout for training has been incredible, and we hope it continues throughout the season!

Welcome to our new members, who joined us in 2024! We look forward to seeing you on the pitch throughout the season.

Match Roundups - Senior Cricket

The 1st XI completed their preliminary round of the HCPCL with a win against Harefield on the first weekend of the pre season. A tight loss to both Crouch End and Wokingham has galvanised the team under new leader AJ Woodland who has led by example with the bat with knocks of 62 & 97, supported by Teddie Casterton (47) and Dan Marles (65). Wickets have been shared: Conner Haddow picked up where he left off with 4-45 against Wokingham. The 1st team went through in the T20 knockout on a coin toss as Slough was under water.

Welcome to overseas Cameron Hemp, and newcomer Max Uttley who have both joined the club over the winter.

Since 13th April, the 2s and 3s have managed to get a game in each weekend. The 2s have had two wins and one loss, while the 3s have won both of their pre-season games in 2024 and look in great shape. The 4s have managed 2 games in pre-season, and the 5s unfortunately had all their matches washed out by the weather.

There have been a range of performances across the board.

Runs for
AJ Woodland 97 Vs Wokingham
Eliot Callis 40 Vs Harefield T20
AJ Woodland 62 Vs Crouch End 1s
Teddie Casterton 47 vs Crouch End 1s
New member James Taylor 48* vs Crouch End 3s
New member Obi Sarwar 36* vs Crouch End 2s
Aran Hammond 59 vs Crouch End 4s
Tyler Armiger 41 vs Crouch end 4s
Yousaf Sarwar 44* Vs Crouch End 4s
Harry Lane 134 Vs High Wycombe Gymkhana
Kash Sheikh 70 Vs Marlow 2s
Callum Stay 62 Vs Marlow 2s
Reuben Barksfield 51 Vs Wokingham 2s
Billy Dodds 45 Vs Wokingham 2s
Nick Robinson 72 Vs Wokingham 2s
Kash Shiekh 55 Vs Wokingham 2s

Wickets
Harry Lane 5/11 vs Crouch End 2s
New Member Will Heyes 4-1 Vs Crouch End 3s
Max Coker 2-0 Vs Crouch End 3s
Matt Walker 3-7 vs Crouch End 4s
Billy Dodds 3-14 vs High Wycombe Gymkhana
Conner Haddow 4-45 vs Wokingham
Iain Hill 4-14 Vs Marlow 2s
Billy Dodds 4-45 Vs Wokingham 2s

Unfortunately, the first weekend of the Super 8s kindly hosted by Marlow CC was washed out, and matches will aim to be rescheduled.

As we head into the first round of the league season for the Seniors, we have an exciting set of 5 senior sides who will challenge well, with all sides containing a mix of youth and experience. We are entered in the National Cup and CCC Cup this year, with the first round of the National on Sunday, May 12th and the CCC Cup against Finchley on May 19th, both games at HQ, so these are games we would love to get some great support down to.

Live Streaming for 2024

We have partnered with NV Play to bring Live Streaming to HWCC, we've had 5 games shown live so far with great viewing figures of both steaming and Highlights packages across our Website, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and our newly created channel TikTok. Stay turned throughout the season to see our streams and highlights from various matches are London Road. We’d like to thank Gentleman & Players, EDTC Digital Media and Jam Worldwide for their support in signing long term details enabling us to secure our initial investment in the equipment. Want to become a sponsor of our Live Stream and Highlights or one of our other opportunities, contact sponsorship@hwcc.co.uk to find out more.

Junior Cricket

Our Juniors' season begins this week with a wide range of matches for all teams. Our U9s, U12s, U13s, U14s, U15s and U17s all have two teams entered into league competitions.

Our U13s and U15s will be competing in the National Cup this year where we hope to go far with strong squads available. We’re looking forward to seeing plenty of our juniors progress into our senior sides in 2024.