Chris Murtagh (91), Richie Oliver (76) and Neil Saker (45 not out) showed early season batting form Saturday as Reigate crushed Sevenoaks Vine by 142 runs in a pre-season 45-over friendly.
After Reigate had posted a score of 253-6 in 45 overs, the Priory bowlers hit their straps with two wickets apiece for Will Hodson, Matt Hutcheon and debutant Michael Munday, while Jack Beaven, also making his debut in the firsts, topped the pack with a well-crafted 3-21 in a six over spell.
Sevenoaks, who narrowly staved off relegation from the Kent Premier league last season, could only post a score of 111 in 29.5 overs with wicket-keeper Cyrus White top scoring with 28 not out.
Reigate lost early wickets after being put in to bat with Henry Tye caught for 2 and Andy Delmont being bowled for a sprightly 16 in 13 balls (with two 4’s and a 6). However Richie Oliver and Chris Murtagh, coming together at 32-2, had little trouble dealing with a Sevenoaks attack that rarely challenged, putting on 105 runs together at a run a ball.
Oliver set the pace initially, scoring 41 runs in the first 50 runs of this partnership from 56 balls, of which Murtagh’s share was only 8. However the Priory skipper slowly accelerated his scoring with 22 runs in the second 50-runs of their partnership.
With the score at 137-2, Oliver tried to feast once too often off the slow left-arm bowling of Max Aitken and was caught at mid-on having hit two 4’s and a 6 in the previous three balls. Oliver made 76 in his 74-ball stay at the wicket.
Angus Dahl came and went for 2, bowled by Aitken. This was Dahl’s first game since badly breaking the index finger on his right hand, his bowling hand, while playing for the University of New South Wales grade two cricket team last January. With two pins in that finger, the leg-spinning all-rounder says it still hurts when he tries to bowl in the nets but nonetheless he hopes to be back to full fitness within a few weeks.
With Dahl gone at 143-4, Murtagh found a new partner for a second run-a-ball century partnership with former skipper and paceman Neil Saker, now reinvented as a batsman.
Those who saw Saker’s last first XI game at home against Valley End in the final game of the 2015 season might remember that the then Priory skipper promoted himself to bat at number 4 from his usual number 9 position and scored 24 in 67 balls without even one boundary in an innings that might have made even Geoffrey Boycott wince.
Well at Sevenoaks this was a new Saker, with two 6’s and one 4 in his first 20 runs. He dominated the first 50-run partnership and while Murtagh took on the senior role in the second 50-runs the pair put on together, Saker still ended up with 45 not out from 55 balls.
With seven balls of the innings to go, Murtagh, pushing for his century, was bowled for 91 off 105 balls. While he deserved his hundred, he had nonetheless steered Reigate into a strong position and when Sevenoaks had floundered to 51-6 after the opening salvo of 12 overs from Hodson and Beaven, the final result never was in doubt.
Beaven was the first to strike having Sevenoaks skipper Oliver Durrell caught behind by makeshift keeper Tye in his first over – not a bad start for the former Reading fast bowler.
Not to be outdone, Hodson bowled the other opener, the evergreen John Bowden, now 44, for 7.
Evert Bekker, the former Tunbridge Wells captain and Chad Quinney, a New Zealander who played for Long Ditton CC last summer, then put on 34 runs before Quinney was run out thanks to some sharp fielding from Munday.
After the run out, Beaven bowled Greg Adams for 1 at 49-4. In the next over, Hodson took his second wicket when Tye took another catch behind the stumps with Aitken departing, also for 1, at 50-5. Then one run later, Beaven took his third wicket by bowling Bekker for 15. Four wickets had fallen for five runs in 22 balls. Beaven had figures of 3-21 in six overs and Hodson had 2-28, also in six overs.
Brad Anderson and keeper Cyrus White saved Sevenoaks’s blushes by putting on 54 runs together in 15 overs, but their rate of scoring never was going to challenge Reigate’s.
Richard Stevens took over from Hodson at the Oak Trees End for a tidy five over spell yielding only 16 runs, with Munday taking over from Beaven at the Pavilion End.
Those who know the Sevenoaks Vine ground know that this pre-season friendly is played on the edge of the square with a very short boundary on the Holly Bush lane side. Chris Wigley was the Priory bowler who Kent County batsman Fabian Cowdrey took a liking to in the 2014 pre-season friendly, hitting the hapless left-arm spinner for two 6’s and two 4’s in four balls in an innings of 38 not out in 13 balls to win the game for Sevenoaks.
So it was a brave Munday who made his debut from the same end with the same short leg-side boundary. In his first four over he was hit for two 6’s as well, but he yielded only 17 runs overall. Once he switched to Stevens’s Oak Trees End he had better luck.
With the score on 105, Munday broke the seventh-wicket partnership by winning an LBW decision against Anderson from the Sevenoaks umpire. And in his next over, Munday had James White stumped by Tye for 1. At times he was spinning both his leg breaks and googlies prodigiously on a pitch where the Sevenoaks spinners could find little turn.
Munday had no more time to work on the batsmen, though, as Matt Hutcheon in his fifth over bowled both the number 10 and number 11 batsmen in successive balls. Sevenoaks had managed a mere 111, having lost their last four wickets for six runs in 23 balls, mirroring the earlier mid-order collapse.
Hutcheon ended with 2-10 in 4.5 overs and Munday 2-27 in eight overs.
Next Saturday the Priory plays its second pre-season friendly at home against Hartley Country Club, winners of the Kent Premier league in 2015 and 2016 but relegated at the end of last season. The game has a noon start.