A season’s best haul of 6-38 by Reigate’s Michael Munday and a hard-fought 93 by overseas professional Andy Delmont helped Reigate Priory to a 121 run win against Banstead on Saturday as the Llamas maintained their top-of-the-table spot in the Surrey Championship.
After being put in to bat by Banstead, who won the toss, Reigate – and more specifically Richard Oliver – set off at breakneck speed scoring 12 runs in the first over, five runs in the second and a further eight runs in the fourth over.
By the time the seventh over had been bowled, Oliver was back in the pavilion, caught at deep point by Craig Short off Luke Fisher for 31 runs in 22 balls, with Reigate on 38-1.
It took a further 17 overs for Reigate to double the score from here to 76 as batsmen initially found the going tough and were unable to match Oliver’s buccaneering approach.
Delmont never looked to be in fluent form in his first major innings of the season, but he stuck gamely and successfully to the task. In his previous six innings this season he had averaged only 24 runs each innings (half his usual average).
Danny Miller, who opened with Oliver, scored 11 in 42 balls before first ball after the drinks break he was bowled by Arsalan Abbas at 55-2.
Sam Hall, normally a quick scorer, took 13 balls to get off the mark and he and Delmont put on 44 together, but it took them 16 overs to do so.
Hall was caught off Abbas for 21 at 99-4 and Chris Murtagh lasted only a few overs before being out leg before to Tyler Meyer for 5 at 112-4 in the 37th over, at which point lunch was taken.
After lunch Angus Dahl joined Delmont, then on 43 not out, and in 22 overs, this pair transformed the innings, putting on 92 runs together in 22 overs at a run rate of 4.2 an over. Delmont reached his 50 in 123 balls. Dahl was approaching his 50 at a faster rate of scoring when Delmont was out for 93 in 175 balls, stumped off Meyer’s bowling at 204-5 in the 59th over.
Thereafter, the remaining batsmen threw the bat at the ball. Dahl, who made his 50 from 68 balls, was out soon thereafter, caught off Meyer’s bowling for 51. Ben Shoare hit a quick-fire 17 in 11 balls before being caught off Abbas’s bowling. And then Richard Stevens and Luke Beaven hit an entertaining 34 runs between them in just 17 balls to get the Priory onto a score of 264-7 in 65 overs, at which point a satisfied skipper declared the innings closed.
A target of 265 to win in 59 overs was very much within Banstead’s capabilities, particularly after the side had pushed Weybridge to a draw with a score of 231-8 in 56 overs the week before. The team’s best batting is at the top of the order with Tom Lancefield, the former Surrey and Glamorgan player and Dan Newton, the Banstead skipper, opening the innings.
Reigate looked to have made a breakthrough when in the first ball of the fourth over Lancefield (9 not out) sliced Stevens to a fly slip only for the catch to be dropped. Fortunately a few overs later just as Banstead were looking to be getting stuck into their task with 18 runs scored in two overs, Will Hodson got rid of the dangerous Lancefield for 23, leg before wicket at 41-1.
After two maiden overs, Stevens got his deserved wicket thanks to a superlative catch from Oliver to get rid of Newton for 17, at the same score of 41. Newton had hit the ball seemingly safely in the air between mid-on and midwicket when Oliver swooped around from mid-on, dived and took the catch inches from the ground.
The elation from that catch was soon dissipated, however, when number three batsman Rayaan Hussain was dropped in the slips five balls later, also off Stevens.
Still, events were happening and after 12 overs Murtagh turned to spin and brought on his Munday in place of Stevens (1-27 from 6 overs and two catches dropped)at the Avenue Road End. And with his seventh ball, Munday had Josh Stainer leg before for 6 at 66-3. Thereafter the wickets fell steadily.
Hodson chipped in next over by bowling Hussain for 17 at 74-4 before he too gave way to the spin of Beaven after taking 2-43 in 11 overs.
Beaven and Munday arguably are the two best spin bowlers in the league. They started bowling in tandem in this game in the 21st over with the score at 86-4 and in 19 overs took the remaining six wickets between them for 57 runs, with Munday taking the lion’s share.
Reigate supporters are familiar with Beaven’s dominance in wicket-taking in the Surrey Championship since he joined the club in 2013. In 5 seasons he’s taken a total of 205 league wickets in 87 games at an average of 15.11 runs per wicket with an economy rate of 3.08 runs per over and a strike rate of 29.43 balls – i.e. he takes a wicket every five overs.
In 2014, 2016 and 2017 he was 1st or 1st equal for wickets in the Premier Division. Currently in the 2018 season he’s top wicket-taker with 21 wickets season-to-date.
Munday’s record at Horsham also is stunning. From 2011-2017 he played 119 league games in seven seasons for Horsham. He took 377 league wickets in 119 games at an average of 13.93 runs per wicket with an economy rate of 3.59 runs per over and a strike rate of 23.28 – i.e. he takes a wicket every four overs.
In 2012, 2013, 2016 & 2017 Munday topped the Sussex Premier Cricket League for wickets and was second for most wickets taken in 2014 and 2015.
In the Banstead game Beaven took only the one wicket, when he had the number nine batsman Abbas leg before for 2.
Of the six wickets Munday took, three were leg before, two were bowled and one was stumped.
The umpires will tell you that Munday varies every ball he bowls between his leg breaks, his googlies and the one that goes straight on. Lower order batsmen in particular have great difficulty in deciding which ball is which, which is why they rarely last too long against his bowling.
Indeed, the longest Munday had to wait between wickets on Saturday was a mere 24 balls.
The win against Banstead keeps Reigate in top spot. However the six point differential between them and Weybridge remains as Weybridge also won, beating Sutton by seven wickets.
The leadership of the Surrey Championship should get impacted this coming Saturday when the Priory visits Weybridge at Weybridge. It will be a contest between Reigate’s superior bowling firepower and Weybridge’s top batting talent.
Weybridge’s batting line-up may well include New Zealand T20 batting star Tom Bruce, who is also signed up to play T20 cricket for Sussex in the NatWest T20 Blast, and Will Jacks, formerly with Guildford, who is making a big impression this summer at Surrey. Other batting talent includes Ben Curran, the middle one of the three Curran brothers, who also plays for MCC Young Cricketers, as well as a familiar adversary Harry Cripps.
Currently for runs, Bruce tops the Surrey Championship with 442 runs at an average of 102.50. Oliver is in 5th place with 295 runs at 42.14.
Reigate has three bowlers currently in the top 10 wicket-takers (Beaven 1st with 21, Munday 4th with 17 and Hodson 7th with 14). Weybridge has two bowlers in this list - medium-pacer Brent Kay in 5th spot with 16 wickets and spinner Francois Vainker in 9th spot with 14 wickets. The game starts at 11am.