HAC AXI 314-3 (45 overs) beat Adastrians 264-9 (45 overs) by 50 runs · Vine Lane, Uxbridge, 14 June 2026

The pitch at Vine Lane was, as ever, flat, hard and bouncy — and on such a surface, runs were always going to come. Liam Casey and Jack Huxtable both retired out on hundreds, which tells you everything about how HAC's afternoon went. The two openers put on 201 before a wicket fell, Casey eventually departing for 100 from 90 balls, Huxtable for the same from 86, and Zeeshan Mahmood continued the assault with 53 from 48. The final total of 314-3 was never seriously threatened by a home side that never quite found the fluency the chase demanded.

The Adastrians' reply had its moments — Jack Savage made a brisk 35, and Grant Standerline blazed an unbeaten 64 from 43 balls at the death to give the scorecard some respectability — but they were 106-6 well before the halfway point and 264-9 at the close, fifty runs adrift and never truly in contention. HAC, for their part, were comfortable throughout.

Moses Ogbimi was a revelation with the ball. His figures of 3-22 from seven overs, two of them maidens, told only part of the story; the manner was what caught the eye, a composure and control that belied apparent youth while colleagues disappeared for nine and ten an over. Shanahan, stationed in the covers, provided the moments of pure theatre: two catches of real quality, one a skyer that seemed to hang in the Uxbridge sky for an eternity before he tracked it, circled, and took it coolly over his shoulder. For a spell it felt as though only two men were playing. Ogbimi is one to watch.

Yet the result felt almost secondary on a day when it became clear this may well have been the last time HAC set foot at Vine Lane. The RAF Sports Ground has been the official home of RAF cricket since 1939, hosting the MCC, the Middlesex Cricket Board, the Army and the Combined Services across its long and storied life. Tucked into a leafy corner of Hillingdon near the end of the Metropolitan line's Uxbridge branch, it remained pretty well unchanged throughout its history, its charming period pavilion presiding over a modest five-acre site tended for decades with quiet, devoted care. The Adastrians themselves were formed in the late 1920s by RAF officers, and Vine Lane has been central to their identity ever since. That such a ground — one that staged first-class cricket, nurtured generations of servicemen players, and offered a rare pocket of pastoral calm in west London — should fall silent is a melancholy thing. HAC will play on. But they will not play here again, and that is worth a moment's pause before the scorecards are filed away.