FINCHAMPSTEAD CC captain Dan Marles is not getting carried away despite seeing his side move to third place in the Home Counties Premier League and within seven points of leaders Banbury, writes Dave Wright.

His fast-rising side extended their winning run when defeating second-bottom Reading by 122 runs at the Memorial Ground on Saturday.

“Four wins on the bounce is top quality stuff,” said Marles, who led from the front with a classy century.

“The season so far is going better than expected. At the start of the year we were looking to consolidate in Division One and we would probably have been happy being in a mid-table position.

“The aim is still to consolidate and build a side for two or three years time when we can really challenge for the title.

“But the way we are playing and winning games, nothing can be be ruled out this season and I can’t say we have no chance of winning the title.

“The aim is to try to win as many games as possible and see where that takes us.

“But at the moment we are taking just one game at a time.”

Marles added: “We are mainly a young side with players who have a lot of ambition to do well.

“We want to beat sides by playing attacking cricket.

“I hope our (141-run) win at Henley (Saturday before last) made the rest of the league sit up and take notice of us ​– that is the message we are trying to put over as a side.”

For a time on Saturday, Finchampstead looked to be making hard work of overcoming a Reading side looking to avoid their sixth defeat in seven matches.

“Before the game we spoke about players stepping up and doing the right things and most of them did that today.”

Marles played his part by making 103 in his side’s total of 262-8 off their allotted 64 overs.

Dan Lincoln contributed 54 and fellow opener Matt Jones 30.

There was a slight wobble mid-innings, but the hosts finished strongly with Greg Smith scoring 20, Matt Carter 16 not out and Sukhi Kang 13 against his former club.

Finch’s highly potent opening attack of Jandre Coetzee and Carter tied down the Reading batsmen.

The in-form South African was not quite producing as much movement off the seam as he had in his previous three games, although still beat the batsmen on numerous occasions.

He conceded only 18 runs off his first 11 overs, with half of them coming from the last before being given a breather.

Carter bowled Pav Chima for two with the total on eight after 10 overs, but Qasim Ali and Martin Andersson edged the total along to 64 by the 25th over before Max Stevenson bowled Ali for a patient 22.

Coetzee then returned to the attack and proceeded to rip through the Reading innings.

Teenager Andersson, however, continued to defy the home attack with some outstanding batting, and was not even afraid to move down the wicket to play Coetzee.

He scored 101 of his side’s final total of 140 while six of his team-mates were dismissed for ducks.

​After a second spell of 5-31 from 10.4 overs, Coetzee finished ​ the game with 5-49 off 21.4 overs to take ​his total to 21 wickets in four games, while Carter had 3-30 off 15 and Max Stevenson 1-19 off five with the latter getting the other wicket ​thanks to a superbly-executed run out.

Marles commented: “It was an excellent win – and I’m really happy. The team got it right on the day.”

Finchampstead will be looking to make it five victories in succession when they visit Slough this Saturday.

  •  FINCHAMPSTEAD CC president Neil Doody hosted a club reunion lunch at the Reading game, and among those who attended were former first team skippers Denis Maynard (1967-1971), Les Smith (1972-1973), Roger Gilks (1974), Bob Evans (1975-1976, 1980-1982) and Colin Cleverley (1979 and 1984).

“It was great to see so many former players back at club,” said Doody, who was chairman for 38 years from 1973 and then became president in 2012.