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Llamas lose to Sutton (again) but cling onto top spot

Llamas lose to Sutton (again) but cling onto top spot

Antony Ireland13 Aug 2018 - 08:30
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https://www.reigatepriorycc.co

By Paul Bridge

Reigate Priory lost to Sutton for the second time this season on Saturday but because of results elsewhere the Llamas not only stayed on top of the Surrey Championship table but increased their lead over Weybridge by one point to 11 points.
The Priory won the toss and elected to bat and despite a brace of 4’s to opener Richie Oliver in the first over of the innings bowled by Aman Shinwari, Sutton’s Afghani pace bowler, the visiting side found the pitch slow and never were able to adjust successfully to the conditions.
Indeed there were only eight 4’s in the whole of the Priory innings as well as two 6’s. Priory skipper Chris Murtagh and Brad Scriven put on 61 runs for the third wicket at a rate of four runs an over, but apart from these two, the run rate rarely got much over three runs an over with the innings closing on 159 at a rate of 3.28 runs an over.
After Oliver’s opening over, both he and fellow opener Andy Delmont batted cautiously against Sutton’s opening attack of Shinwari and Rehan Ratnasapabathy.
Delmont was the first to go, caught at slip for 19 off 37 balls by Chris Morris off Ratnasapabathy in the 14th over at 35-1. In the next over Oliver was caught by Luke Smith off Shinwari for 14 off 43 balls with the score now at 35-2.
Connor Griffin and Richard Sillars took over from Ratnasapabathy and Shinwari, but Scriven and Murtagh made headway in their partnership, increasing the rate of scoring.
Scriven was lucky to survive a shot off the bowling of left-arm spinner and Sutton skipper Harry Allen when he was 15 not out at a score of 72-2 as the ball went through mid-off’s hands and thence to the boundary.
It was the introduction of Sutton’s other left-arm spinner Freddie Boys that gave Sutton the wicket they wanted when Murtagh was stumped by former Northants wicket-keeper David Murphy for 25 off 40 balls at 96-3.
Sam Hall followed Murtagh back to the pavilion four overs later at 107-5 when an attempted reverse sweep gave Murphy an easy catch and Boys his second wicket. Hall made 4.
Dahl was run out when he and Scriven went for a risky second run at 120-5 and Luke Haughton was caught behind off Sillars for 9 at 135-6. The three middle order batsman had gone for 16 runs between them.
Richard Stevens tried to give Scriven support but then the number three batsman, in an effort to scoop the ball to the boundary managed only to plop it into the hands of Gary Outram at short fine leg. Scriven had made 55 when he was out off the bowling of Sillars at 152-7.
Thereafter the innings came to a swift conclusion. George Ellison, playing in place of Luke Beaven, was out first ball. Hodson lasted three balls and Stevens was last out for 15 at 159, caught off Sillars’s bowling, giving the medium pacer his fourth wicket in five overs to end with figures of 4-27.
Morris and Boys opened up for Sutton and found the pitch a little easier than Reigate had and the Reigate bowling less accurate initially than Sutton’s as they put on 60 runs together in the first 10 overs.
Delmont and Will Hodson were replaced after five overs and 35 runs being scored and with no Beaven available, Murtagh tried to staunch the pace of run-scoring by bringing on Michael Munday.
Munday went for 26 runs in four overs and it was only when Murtagh paired Stevens from the Cheam Road End with Hodson from the Football Ground End that the flurry of runs was staunched.
A score of 60-1 in the first 10 overs became 99-5 after 21 overs as Stevens, in particular, found both rhythm and length and tore through the Sutton batting.
His first victim was Morris at 60-1, leg before to Stevens for a run-a-ball 25.
Five overs later Shinwari, a tail-ender promoted in the order to try to score some quick runs, was caught by Stevens off a skier from Hodson’s bowling for 8 from 20 balls at 81-2.
Next over, Stevens bowled Allen, a dangerous batsman who had scored a hundred against the Priory three years ago. This time he lasted two balls, bowled Stevens at 85-3.
Boys was caught behind by Hall in Stevens’s next over, his 7th, having made 47 in 54 balls at 87-4. And in Stevens’s 8th over Outram was the victim in a brilliant caught and bowled effort, Stevens diving forward to pick the ball up inches from the ground.
Munday took over from Stevens, after he had bowled nine overs, at the Cheam Road End, and immediately had Sutton’s number seven batsman Luke Smith leg before for 5 at 107-6.
Suddenly Llama supporters were remembering that Reigate were 135 -6, almost 30 runs more than Sutton had for the same number of wickets and that Reigate were very much in the game. But such hopes were soon dashed as Sutton skipper Daniel Edwards joined former pro Murphy in what was to prove a match-winning unbeaten partnership of 56 runs.
In getting Sutton to 107-6, Murtagh was running out of strike bowlers and he was missing the option of bowling Beaven. Hodson was finishing off his 10 overs for 1-34. Stevens had only one over left for his 10 overs and Munday was halfway through his 10 overs which ended with figures 1-35.
Dahl bowled an over but was hit by Edwards for a 4 and two 6’s. Ellison bowled just over two overs for 15 runs. However Edwards and Murphy had too many overs left at their disposal and got the needed 53 runs in 13 overs with another 12 overs to spare.
Edwards ended on 42 not out off 41 balls and Murphy, who played the anchor role, made 18 not out off 60 balls as Sutton won by four wickets to complete a season’s double over Reigate, the only two losses the Llamas have suffered this summer..
Stevens ended with his second-best bowling figures for the Priory of 4-31. Humphrey Bate, Reigate’s scorer in the 1990s and 2000s noted that Stevens got a 4-fer (4-60) in his first game for the Llamas at the Sutton ground in July 2009. Reigate won that game by nine wickets with Murtagh scoring an unbeaten century.
With three games to go before the end of the 2018 cricket season, Reigate Priory visit East Molesey this coming Saturday in a must win game for the Llamas. East Molesey beat Weybridge last Saturday in a win that lifts them out of the relegation zone so they’ll be looking for a win as well to remain relegation-free. The 50-over-a-side game starts at noon.
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