Twickenham had a mixed bag of results in Week 13 of the 2026 MCCL campaign. The 3s and 5s posted good wins, the 4s – and Steve Cowley in particular – dug in and secured a draw against OMT 3s. The ones and twos will be re-grouping and going again.

Dassani and Cowley stand tall for the 4s
The Twickenham CC 4th XI didn’t manage to beat OMT thirds on 1 August, but the day was nonetheless noticeable for two outstanding performances.

Hinay Dassani once again showed why he’s respected up and down the league. His 7-82 represented a season’s best for the 4s’ skipper, and took his wicket haul for the 2026 season to 36. It’s when you remember that that’s his 39th (yes, 39th!) five wicket haul in Twickenham colours that you see how consistent he’s been over the years. Indeed, he’s only four wickets short of 700, at an average of 17.9. And he goes on….

Matt Parker chipped in with a couple of wickets alongside Dassani and that saw OMTs close on an impressive 242 (see here for the card).

The Ts initially made a good fist of chasing that down. Andy Donelan and Steve Cowley put on over 100 for the first wicket as the 4s began to believe that the chase could be on.

However, Donelan’s (47 off 89) departure saw the wheels rather fall off. Frankie Lingeman and Harry Tebb both reached double figures, but those two stalwarts to one side, no else – bar Cowley – did.

Cowley seems to be making something of a habit of digging in and going long when all else around him is falling apart. He was there at the end (94no off 98) as the Ts closed out proceedings and pocketed a losing draw. That knock takes Cowley to 292 runs for the season at a cool average of 72.7. Indeed, it takes him over 3,000 runs for the club – only the 20th player in the modern, play-cricket-era to do so. Respect due.

Threes hold their nerve to beat Enfield
The threes have slowly but surely been making progress up the Division Three (third tier) table (see here). That progressed continued on Saturday.

Still, their journey to ten more points wasn’t a walk in the park (see here for the card). Skipper Robbie Bosier put in an excellent performance with the ball, taking 4-45 as Enfield closed on 138. The ever-reliable Praween Siriwardena (2-24 off 11) chipped in whilst Max Hunt – 3-4 off 4.4 – entered like a hurricane at the end. Barty Boyd also made a claim to catch of the season, too.

For Enfield, skipper Will Hoyle (21 off 76) embraced the Chris Tavare (google him) approach to batting, Abeed Ayubi (29 off 25) was much more bazball. Either way, the Ts needed 139 to win.

Sean Daly (21 off 15) and Jonty Hunt (18 off 36) saw Twickenham nicely along to 53-1, but when that transformed to 54-4 there were some furrowed brows on the slidelines.

Enter the calming presence of Siriwardena – a man who over 13 years has quietly taken 185 wickets in Ts’ colours and scored 1,566 runs – to steady the ship. His 29 (55 balls) did plenty to move Twickenham up to and beyond 100.

Holger Kriess’s 14 (off 30 balls) kept things ticking along, but it was ultimately gaffer Bosier and Rohith Duma who were there at the end to see the Ts over the line. Fourth place in the table now and indeed looking up.

Solid stuff from the fifths
The fifths were the other Twickenham winners on 1 August. They made chasing 157 against Ealing Trailfinders look surprisingly straightforward (see here for the card).

Trailfinders are one of the better side in Division 6A (third tier) and skipper Bosier was under no illusions about the task to hand. That looked even more apparent when Trailfinders were 54-0 with Aneesh Chaudhary (24 off 40) and Thomas Somerville (29 off 30) looking good.

Lloyd Townsend, a man who’d bowled without luck the week before against Chiswick, then took his tally of wickets in Twickenham colours to 70 (at an average of 15.3) by removing Chaudhary and the number three Udebulla Khan.

Faizan Latif (33 off 50) did fight back but the returning Ryan Oakes then proceeded to cause total carnage. 5-12 off 35 balls saw Trailfinders collapse to 157. Gaffer Bosier helped Oakes out – he bowled just the six balls, but he claimed two wickets (2-4) in the process. Dictionary definition of an impact player there.

In reply, the Ts’ batting was a picture of solidity. Paul McLoughlin ended his barren run of form by batting admirably for 50 balls. Smacking ball two and ball four of the innings for boundaries certainly helped him get up and running.

McLoughlin’s opening partner, Sourav Salgotra (56 off 67), smoothly took the Ts into comfortable territory, while Ali Malik (27 off 37) and Peter Miller (16no off 31) kept the momentum going. The ebullient Terone Alexander then finished things off with a boundary. The Ts were home with seven wickets and plenty of overs to spare.

Ones battle, but to no avail
Life might be good for the fifths at the moment, but nothing at all seems to be going right for the ones. Injuries and unavailabilities are causing havoc. The former (injuries) do seem to be coming in ever more annoying forms – that’s no reflection on any individual, it just makes a battle to stay in the Premier League even more difficult than normal.

With all that in mind, it’s no surprise that the ones have struggled of late. That struggle continued on Saturday when North Middlesex came to town (see here for the card).

The Midd have hardly had a stellar season themselves. Still, they had enough to win on Saturday, triumphing by 90 runs on the Green.

Jacob Miltz (83 off 132) was at the centre of their batting display, Divyanshu Bhartiya (44 off 70) and David Winn (39 off 88) helped him along.

Ali Jennings continued his development by bowling 11 admiral overs at the top for Carlos Nunes’s side. Jennings, a former junior has come right through the ranks, ended with 1-42 off 11. It was the spinning duet of Akash Multani (4-65) and Ollie White (4-73) who nonetheless did most of the damage as the Midd closed on 249.

As has been the case on a number of occasions this season, there were times when the Ts looked like they may make a real fight of chasing a total down. Preet Himanshukumar (32 off 48) was bright and breezy, Carlos Nunes (43 off 77) as easy on the eye as ever. But no one really managed to make the big knock needed. The Ts closed 90 short.

Twos struggle
Until recently the twos were on an excellent run. Over the last two weeks they’ve somehow veered off and got stuck in a cul-de-sac.

Still, Blake van der Linde’s side remain out of the bottom two places (see here), but they need a couple more wins if they are going to ensure Premier League cricket in 2027.

On Saturday they had first hit at North Midd and after a solid start collapsed to 107 all out (see here for the card). Rajdeep Choudhry (18 off 26), James Smith (19 off 33) and Eugene Berger (20 off 29) all got in before then proceeding to get out just as a big score beckoned. Linus Wainewright (5-9 off 10.1) had a day he won’t be forgetting in a hurry.

In reply, North Midd skipper Will Frais scored a rapid 36 (16 balls), and when he was out the overall score was only four more than his total. Eugene Berger was the man who got him, stumped by Milan Gurjal.

Frais’s departure had little noticeable effect on the flow of the game. Ross Forester (22 off 25) and then Fergal Walter (24no off 20) did enough to see the Midd to ten points.

On to next week.