BERKSHIRE’S Unicorns Championship game against Wales Minor Counties at Henley this week was abandoned with play only possible on Sunday – and even that was shortened due to bad light.

Heavy overnight rain prevented any play on Monday and, with water having seeped under the covers, the wicket was still unfit for play on Tuesday with two damp pitches at one end.

It wasn’t a good match all-round for Berkshire, as they had been blasted out in their first innings for 98 in six minutes under two hours.

“We didn’t perform well,” admitted skipper James Morris.

“It was due to a mixture of things. We felt we had a bit of bad luck with some of the dismissals and in conjunction with that we didn’t adjust to the conditions quickly enough.”

Waqas Hussain (10) and Ollie Wilkin (12) had put on 22 for the first wicket before both departed in successive overs.

Martin Andersson made seven, while Richard Morris (3) and brother James (0) were dismissed in successive deliveries in the seventh over as Berkshire, who had elected to bat first, slumped to 39-7 with Andy Rishton making only four and professional Chris Peploe going first ball.

Euan Woods worked hard to steady the ship along with Sukhi Kang and they put on 44 for the eighth wicket.

Woods made the top score of 31 off as many balls and Kang 17 off 39, while Matt Carter remained 10 not out and Tom Nugent was caught behind for four.

For Wales, Ben Roberts took 4-28 off 6.4 overs and Harry Powell 4-33 off nine.

In reply, there was an early wicket for Nugent, who bowled Gareth Ansell with the total on two, but 85 runs were added for the second wicket in 23 overs, with Sam Woods reaching 50 before being caught by Wilkin off the bowling of Carter.

Nugent (2-52) hit the stumps again to dismiss Sam Pearce for 42 and Wilkin (1-10) took his first wicket for Berkshire when having Sean Griffiths caught behind by Kang for 47.

Peploe (1-39) trapped Wales skipper Tom Baker lbw for 0 while Steffan Roberts was unbeaten on 32 when bad light brought a premature halt to day one with Wales on 180-5 off 53 overs, a lead of 82 runs.

Umpires Jeremy Beckwith and Phil Matten made several inspections before deciding to call the game off just after 2.20pm on Tuesday.

Berkshire took six points from the game and Wales nine.

Berkshire’s next fixture is against Cheshire at Falkland CC starting on Sunday week, July 3.