Llamas through to last 16 of National

Paul Bridge writes...
In a game where both sides had a large partnership followed by a substantial batting collapse, Reigate Priory beat Sunbury on Sunday by 32 runs to end up winners of Group 11 in the ECB National Club Championship, thereby moving into the last 16 teams in the country with a home fixture against East Grinstead set for July 16th.
The Priory innings of 229 owed much to the fourth wicket partnership of 131 between Ben Shoare and Bradley Scriven over 24 of the 45 overs available.
Shoare, who’s been in rich form lately with a 98 against East Molesey and a 42 the day before against Weybridge, scored another 77 in 106 balls with five 4’s and a six. Scriven scored 50 from 60 balls with two 4’s and a six, starting to regain the form he’s had in his previous two seasons at the club.
But at 186-3, with 10 overs still to go, the Priory innings suddenly fell apart. Vishal Manro, the Sunbury spinner, in his seventh over, caught and bowled Scriven and four balls later had Shoare caught by Sunbury skipper Kevin Smith for 77.
In the next over Priory wicketkeeper David Ramsden was leg before to left-arm spinner Alex Hughes for 2 at 192, now for 6 wickets. Four overs later Hughes, a part-time spinner who’s bowled just 10 overs for 50 runs and no wickets in league cricket this year, scythed through the Priory lower order by taking three wickets in the one over.
Beaven was bowled for 8, second ball of the over by one that kept low. King was caught off the fourth ball for 0 and Stevens was leg before for 11 on the sixth ball.
An unbeaten last wicket partnership of 20 between Harry McInley and Will Hodson saw Priory achieve some respectability by ending on 229-9 from its 45 overs. It was 20 runs short of what might have been expected at 186-3 but the last 10 overs had still yielded a valuable 43 runs, even if at the cost of seven wickets.
Sunbury’s innings followed a similar pattern to Reigate’s on a pitch that had “inconsistent” bounce, as the umpire put it, and took spin.
Hodson had an early success in his first over when he had opener Mesome Hussain leg before at 0-1.
Martin Andersson and Berkshire batsman Sam Burgess pushed the score to 39 before Andersson was bowled by Stevens for 19.
Andersson is a new name at Sunbury, being recommended to the club by Middlesex where he has a university contract.
Burgess was lucky still to be batting as Hodson thought he had him leg before, a turned down appeal that had the medium-paced bowler still fuming after the game. Also, a stumping chance when Burgess was 4 not out went astray off Beaven’s bowling with the score at 14-1.
However, Burgess and new batsman Armaan Randhawa soon bedded down to form the big partnership of Sunbury’s innings. The pair put on 118 together in just over 20 overs and seemed little troubled by the bowling as a run rate of 6 runs per over suggested.
It was King towards the end of his nine-over spell who made the breakthrough when Burgess inexplicably tried to reverse sweep the off-spinner and ended up leg before wicket for 83. There was some irony in the decision as this particular shot has cost King his own wicket several times before. Burgess had made 83 from 96 balls with ten 4’s and must have thought the century was his for the taking.
And then, as with Reigate, the wheels fell off the Sunbury innings as the side collapsed from 157-2, when they needed 73 more runs for the win with just under 13 overs to go, to a crushing 197 all out, eight wickets going for 40 runs in under nine overs.
After Burgess’s departure King, in his next and last over, had Randhawa caught at long on by Richie Oliver for a run a ball 64, with four 4’s and a 6.
Two overs later Beaven took two wickets in three balls to dispatch Rhythm Bedi, bowled for 10, and Ishi Sohi caught at cover for 0.
McInley had Hughes caught behind in the following over and in the over after that Stevens took two wickets in two balls to get rid of Smith and Manro as five wickets had fallen in three overs for eight runs to leave Sunbury reeling.
Two overs later McInley put the side out of its misery by bowling the number 10 batsman to leave Sunbury 33 runs short of victory at 197 all out.
The Reigate effort had been a collective one, with Stevens taking 3-32 from 7 overs, Beaven 2-31 from 8 overs, McInley 2-32 from 8.1 overs, King 2-57 from 9 overs and Hodson 1-36 from 9 overs.