King four-for cleans up Sunbury

Glorious sunshine and clear blue sky greeted the Sunbury & Reigate 2nd elevens for their opening fixture of the 2018 season. The Sunbury outfield was in its usual pristine condition and the wicket; albeit a bit close to the pavilion, provided a fair contest.

A very different 2nd eleven from last season with Tom Lister and Chris Wigley no longer at the Club and Rory Haughton’s late (successful) promotion to the 1st eleven.

New (old) faces saw the welcome return of Henry Tye and Daryl King with Christian Bond.
Experience was provided by Nick Rotsey from the 3’s joining Will Irving, Jonathan Gale, Toby Briggs and Steven Hirst. The youth of the team was ably represented by Ollie Thilo.

Sakes won the toss and elected to bat. A solid start from Henry Tye and Nick Rotsey. Nick played some powerful shots among a couple of edges. Nick departed in the 8th over having scored 22 of the 26. Neil edged to the keeper for 8 and Matt Hutcheon came in at 4 and scored 11 skying one to the outfield. The Sunbury bowlers bowled a challenging back of length and tied Reigate down. Sunbury’s stalwart Justin Granger and Adam Stainer bowled tightly from one end while their young quicks Ed Knight and Jacob Amyatt-Leir also bowled good lines from the other end making scoring difficult. Captain Curt Higgins 10 overs of spin didn’t provide much respite such that after 34 overs Reigate had been pegged back to 106 for 3.

The last 16 overs almost doubled this score as Henry’s patience was rewarded as both he and Jonathan Gale began to accelerate.

Henry was first to his 50; although taking about 40 overs it provided the basis for the acceleration that was now underway. Rajan Soni was the pick of the Sunbury fielders cutting off many of Henry and Galer’s cover drives. Galer’s 50 followed soon after. Henry was stumped by Darren London for 61 coming down the track to Sikander Singh and with the score on 198 for 4 with one over to go; a minor collapse followed with 4 wickets –Galer 58, Will Irving’s quick fire 15, and Hirsty and Christian Bond all falling to Justin Granger who finished with 4 for 32.

An injured Toby, helping out the player shortage, reluctantly made it to the wicket to be the non-striking batsman for the last ball. The short boundary nearest the pavilion rarely came into play even if the spectators were closer to the action than some of the fielders and 202 looked a competitive score on a wicket where the ball didn’t always come on.

Justin Granger got the Sunbury reply off to a rapid start and it was evident early on that their innings wasn’t going to last the full 50 overs. Hutch bowled without success in his opening spell but there was early success for the returning Daryl King who was too quick for the clean bowled Sean Ventham in his opening over. Daryl then caught and bowled Rajan Soni for 6.

Sikander Singh fell for a duck to Ollie Thilo who replaced Daryl King to keep up the speed attack. Ollie looks to have added some extra speed to his usual stump to stump accuracy. Ollie also cleaned bowled Ross Wright. Daryl returned to clean bowl the fast scoring Justin Granger. At 5 wickets down the game looked to be in Reigate’s grasp but Darren London had other ideas and he proved to be a tough nut to remove. Wickets fell at the other end with Christian Bond’s accurate 9 overs bringing him 2 wickets for 26.

Hutch returned to clean bowl youngster Ed Knight and after an over each from Will Irving and Nick Rotsey, Ollie changed ends to clean bowl Sunbury’s other young quick bowler Jacob Amyatt-Leir who was providing stubborn support to Darren London. At 172 for 9 in the 37th over you still wouldn’t have bet against Darren London winning the game for Sunbury. Daryl King was having none of that and returned to find the edge of Darren’s bat and the catch was held by Henry to end Darren’s and Sunbury’s innings.

Highlights with the bat were Henry’s patient 61 and Galer’s 58. The bowlers were not to be outdone with early season accurate bowling accounting for six clean bowled..
An enjoyable game played in an excellent atmosphere.