‘Cricket was his life, he’d have wanted me to play’ (From Bucks Free Press)

Chris plays in honour of dad David

2:00pm Friday 3rd August 2012 in Sport By Alan Feldberg

BEACONSFIELD batter Chris Thomas did his dad proud last Saturday.

David Thomas died last Friday after a long illness. The former Beaconsfield, Surrey and England cricketer was just 53.

But his life was celebrated out in the middle the following day, when Chris wore the captain’s armband and top-scored in Beaconsfield’s home draw with Henley.

He said: “Cricket was his life, with his background he’d have wanted me to play. It was very tough, very emotional, but I was always going to play.

“A few people watching actually said it was my best innings for a few years.

“There wasn’t any pressure, I was able to play very fluent and attacking.

“That’s how he used to bat too so maybe it spurred me on.”

His innings of 68 was enough to stave off defeat, but there wasn’t enough support at the other end for it to be the decisive knock.

However, on a good pitch, the toss was always going to be key. Henley won it and Darren White (82) and Paul Smith (64) eased them up to 250-8.

Jon Mahood said: “We had chances to restrict them to nearer 200. We dropped White when he was on 20 or 30 and then their last two guys got 25 in last two overs.

“I’ve been in the first team about ten years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen 250 chased down.

“Sometimes you’ll see 200 chased down, but don’t think I’ve ever seen 250 chased.”

And Beaconsfield could not buck the trend. A few soft dismissals in the top order put them on the back foot and in the end Thomas’ innings and 50 not out from James Rendell was only good enough for a batting bonus as they closed on 201-8 The result leaves Beaconsfield second from bottom, although they have a healthy lead on last-placed Marlow and the three teams directly above them are all within striking range.

Mahood said: “It’s a shame that some of the other sides around us have won in the last few weeks.

“It’s put a bit of pressure on us to win in the next few weeks.

“We’d won three out of three before those two weeks off because of the weather, so it might have stunted our momentum.

“But we know we’re good enough. It might not be next week or the next one, but we reckon we’ve got three more wins in us at least.”

Tomorrow they go to Kew.

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