George Gittens died suddenly on May 20th. He is a great loss to Bray colts and the team of Bray cricket coaches; he coached at the Club on a regular basis since the early '90s and helped out with team management. He was also one of the main Berkshire cricket coaches, looking after the Under 13s and Under 15s East Berks Development Squads. Besides coaching cricket, he was also a tennis coach at Slough. The love and respect in which he was held was very clear at his funeral last month in Slough, where about 700 people attended his funeral service.

Within a few days of George's death, Martin Wesson, a very long-standing and loyal ex-player, supporter, and social member of the Club, also died suddenly. He is greatly missed.

Sir Michael Parkinson CBE (M&BCC President) formally opened the new practice nets installed at the Club, and dedicated them to George; a brass plaque was unveiled to commemorate this. He also dedicated a bench to Martin Wesson.

Maidenhead & Bray moved through to the quarter final stage in the South & West Region of the National U13 Club Championship when they convincingly beat South Wiltshire by 55 runs on Sunday.

On a warm morning at Bray the Wiltshire team won the toss and opted to bowl first.They made a fine start when Bray opener Sachin Moudgil was run out by a direct hit from the last ball of the 1st over. However Savy Joshi (8) and Brett Herron (17) stabilised the innings and, greatly assisted by a proliferation of wides, no balls and byes, took the score up to 54 in the 8th over before Joshi was caught. Shortly after Herron was caught and bowled to leave Bray on 64 for 3 after 9 overs. The new batsmen Alex Hess (27 not out) and Jamie Odell (26) had to proceed cautiously at first in the face of some accurate mid innings bowling as they built a partnership of 59 runs. Batting together for just under 10 overs they were only able to compile 23 runs in their first 6 overs together but accelerated the scoring rate perfectly in the next 4 overs as they added a further 36 runs. Odell was caught off of the first ball of the last over but with Hess and new batsmen Vishal Gossain ( 8 not out) hitting out powerfully the Bray score finished at a formidable 138 for 4 after their allotted 20 overs.

Maidenhead & Bray U13's qualified for their second cup final this season when they overwhelmed Desborough School in their Julian Cup Semi Final match at Bray on Thursday.

Desborough chose to bat first on winning the toss and must have been ruing their decision as Jamie Odell removed their top 5 batsmen, clean bowling 4 of them, to leave them at 6 for 5 after 5 overs. Odell finished his 4 over spell with the remarkable figures of 5 wickets for 6 runs. Desborough batsmen Sajjad gave some respectability to the score in making 18 but with Oscar Beardmore-Gray claiming 3 for 20 from 2.5 overs and Vishal Gossain taking 1 for 6 from his 2 overs Desborough were bowled out for 43 in the 12th over.

Fresh from their Berkshire County Cup triumph on Friday, Maidenhead & Bray continued their quest for a cup double this season when they travelled to Binfield on Monday to play a quarter final match in the Julian Cup.

Bray won the toss and chose to bat first. Some tight bowling and excellent fielding from Binfield meant that runs were hard to come by at the outset. Bray lost an early wicket when Oscar Beardmore-Gray was caught and with fellow opener Brett Herron finding it difficult to find the gaps in the field the scoring rate was only running at 4 runs per over. Captain Alex Hess (19) increased the scoring rate but when he was out in the 8th over and Herron (13) had to retire one ball later under Julian Cup rules, Bray found themselves at mid innings with their score on 41 and two new batsmen at the crease. One of these batsmen was Jamie Odell and after playing himself in he proceeded to unleash a series of powerful drives on the way to a personal score of 24. With good support at the other end from Vishal Gossain (11) and Sachin Moudgil (11), Bray finished their allotted 16 overs on 97 for 5 wickets.

Maidenhead & Bray won the final of the U13 Berkshire County Cup, played at Boyne Hill on Friday evening, with an excellent 6 wicket victory over Falkland.

Falkland won the toss and elected to bat on what looked to be a good batting wicket but struggled to score runs against the Bray new ball pair of Jamie Odell and Cameron Mahon. Odell, bowling with some pace ,completed his 4 over spell at a personal cost of only 6 runs and I wicket and was excellently supported by Mahon at the other end who took 1 for 12 from his 4 overs. At the end of their bowling spell Falkland found themselves on only 18 for 2 after 8 overs. They upped their scoring rate slightly at mid innings, particularly during an unusual over from Sachin Moudgil who conceded 14 runs but claimed 2 wickets. However with tight bowling from Adam Barratt( 1 for 9 from 3 overs) , Brett Herron (0 for 13 from 4 overs) and Vishal Gossain (0 for 10 from 3 overs) and 3 run outs, they could only finish on 74 for 8 after their allotted 20 overs.

Sir Michael Parkinson will be 'opening' the new nets and dedicating them to George Gittens, and also dedicating a new bench to Martin Wesson on Saturday week, June 27th staring at 6.30pm.

Some of you players and colts will be aware of one or both of these guys, both of whom died suddenly within a week of each other.

George was a first rate cricket coach, working with M & BCC and Berkshire CC colts since the early '90s; he was also a tennis coach in Slough. He was universally respected and liked by colts and parents, and has done more than any other cricket coach towards the successes that M & BCC colts in particular have had in recent years.