An unbroken 90-run sixth wicket partnership between rookie Rory Haughton (68 not out) and Reigate Priory’s perennial Man for Lost Causes – Richard Stevens – turned what was looking like a season’s opening game loss to Sunbury into an exciting win for the Priory with two overs to spare.
After Luke Beaven, with 4-30, had helped bundle out Sunbury for a below par 166 on a sluggish pitch, Reigate ran into an old nemesis by name of Kevin Smith, Sunbury’s opening pace bowler.
At a personal cost of just five runs in six overs, Smith tore through the Llama top order dispatching Richie Oliver, Andy Delmont, Danny Miller and Angus Dahl to leave the Priory reeling on 24-4.
Chris Murtagh and Haughton, however, put on 53 together and just as spectators were relaxing with the thought of Murtagh’s last season’s unbeaten 108 in the opening 2017 game against Ashtead and the idea that the Old Campaigner would shepherd his young rookie partner with his first Priory win, it was the OC who was out first, well caught by that man Smith off Sunbury spinner Vishal Manro for 27 at 77-5.
In recent years the Priory’s 1st XI history is littered with examples of Stevens, batting in this game at number 7, bolstering the lower order batting and in partnership with Beaven, Hodson, Thilo or in this case Haughton, inching slowly, ever so slowly, towards the winning target. And just as you think Stevens has prodded too much and played too defensively – whop! – he brings into action those broad shoulders and biffs a couple of sixes or fours to show winning intent.
In this very same fixture at home last May against Sunbury, Stevens came in at 86-8 chasing a Sunbury total of 155-9 from 50 overs. Firstly with Beaven (25) and then with Hodson (10*), Stevens with a match-winning 36 not out from 76 balls inched the Priory home in a famous win.
And so in this game, batting at number seven, Stevens joined Haughton and the pair inched their way forwards. After 11 overs together the Priory had advanced from 77-5 off 28 overs (at just 2.75 runs per over) to 105-5 from 39 overs (the overall run rate slipping to 2.69). Haughton had scored 13 runs off 30 balls to total 34 from 78 balls while Stevens had moved to 11 not out from 35 balls.
With 11 overs to go Priory needed 62 runs to win at 5.64 an over – by no means the proverbial walk in the park.
Then the break-through. Cue relative carnage off an over from Rhythm Bedi with both batsmen hitting boundaries scoring 13 runs between them off the over.
Then 16 runs came from the next four overs and with Smith bowling his last over, first Stevens hit his fourth boundary of his innings and then Haughton, probably not knowing what a fine bowler Smith is, or caring even less, dispatched the paceman into the pavilion area with a magnificent 6.
This 6 brought up Haughton’s 50 from 93 balls. There were 12 runs off that Smith over and at 152-5 only 17 runs now were needed with four overs to go.
But with the restraints of not losing their wickets gone, and the insouciance of youth now allowed to have its way, both batsmen opened up and met the required target with ease in just two overs.
Haughton finished with 68 not out from 107 balls and Stevens ended on 36 not out from 61 balls.
Haughton had not even been on the team sheet until the morning of the game when ‘flu prevented Jack Beaven from bowling his first ball with intent for the 1st XI in a league game and now here he was, a Priory’s hero.
And as Haughton rightly celebrated his first major contribution to a Priory win, his face split side to side with a huge grin, his arms held aloft in victory, it was Stevens who chalked up yet another winning partnership ground out with the determination and grit he has shown on this and so many other occasions.
Sunbury batsmen had shown their own grit too, at times. After being 9-2 after six overs, with the dangerous Sam Burgess well held at mid-off by Murtagh off Hodson for 3, the visitors’ own Old Campaigner, skipper John Maunders, found a partner in Armaan Randhawa as the pair put on 70 runs together in just 15 overs.
Reigate supporters might remember Randhawa from last June when he scored a free-flowing 54 in the Priory’s win against Sunbury in the fourth round of the ECB National Club Cricket competition.
Unusually, this Asian batsman was actually born and bred in Austria and is an Austrian cricket international, although not having played in any five-day Test Match he will not make Priory President Andy Packham’s list of Test Match cricketers who have played at the Park Lane ground.
Randhawa scored quite freely again, hitting two 6’s and two 4’s in an over from Stevens whose 10 overs, otherwise, would have given two wickets for 18. As it was, the score book recorded those two wickets costing 39 runs.
Beaven replaced Stevens from the pavilion end and as Randhawa decided to give Reigate’s wily left-arm spinner the Stevens treatment, all he managed to achieve was to hit a catch to Michael Munday on the square leg boundary, a catch Munday held well, at ankle height.
Beaven had Bedi leg before for 3 at 85-5 and then Stevens came back to bowl from the Blue Anchor End and immediately bowled Maunders. The former Essex, Leicestershire and Middlesex professional had acquired 36 runs from 65 balls in an effort to hold the innings together.
Sunbury ‘keeper Conor Fulton was the only other Sunbury batsman to offer resistance, but once he was bowled for 30 by Beaven at 150-8, the Sunbury innings folded.
First Smith was bowled by Beaven for 8 at 163-9 leaving Beaven with a 10 over analysis of 4-30. Then Munday bowled Ajit Sambhi for 2, ending with figures of 1-37 off nine overs.