Murtagh Marks Landmark With Winning Century

Paul Bridge writes...

It was a Boys Own story. Reigate Priory favourite Chris Murtagh playing in his 200th Premier Division 1st XI game scores the century that wins the match for his side by 30 runs. Murtagh’s fine batting at home against Ashtead CC was backed up by the Priory having the two best bowlers on the day as well – Richard Stevens who took 3-25 and Will Hodson, who took 3-46.
Both innings pivoted around large partnerships – the Priory’s Murtagh and Andy Delmont combining to put on 108 for the 3rd wicket and Ashtead’s Stewart Cameron and new overseas signing Mahesh Rawat putting on 114 together for the 4th wicket. The difference was that the Priory were able to carry on when Delmont was out as Murtagh, then on 68 not out, added another 40 to his score backed up by 20s from Rory Haughton, on 1st XI debut, Simon King and Luke Beaven.
The Priory ended on 254-7.
When Rawat, a wicket-keeper batsman, was caught by Delmont at deep mid-on from Stevens at 179-4, his partner Stewart Cameron could not continue on for his hundred. He was caught off Stevens, three balls later. Ashtead’s total of 179-3 became 182-5 and the Ashtead tail could add only 42 more runs before succumbing to the Priory at 224 all out.
Ashtead had struck the first blow in the game when skipper John Vaughan-Davies bowled Richie Oliver for 1 on the 10th ball of the day.
Oli Hairs was caught behind by wicket-keeper Rawat off Harshil Patel for 14 (with ‘only’ one six) at 38-2. Patel was another making his debut for Ashtead having moved from Old Whitgiftians where last season he took 36 wickets in league cricket at an average 17.89.
Hairs’s departure brought Delmont in to partner Murtagh and both batsmen were looking at ease from the start. The 50 partnership came in 71 balls and the 100 partnership in 130 balls when, almost out of the blue, Delmont nicked Stewart Cameron’s bowling for another caught behind to Rawat at 146-3 in the 33rd over.
Delmont left for 54 in 74 balls, Murtagh being on 68 not out, his own 50 coming in 80 balls.
Rory Haughton came in for his debut with the Priory, batting at number five, after Michael Burgess had to cry off playing as Sussex had him listed on their team sheet for the Royal London one-day game against Surrey at Hove on Sunday.
Haughton looked at home against the Ashtead attack after a couple of uppish early strokes. He made 20 from 25 balls in a 32-runs partnership with Murtagh before he was bowled by Ashtead’s Surrey Academy left-arm spinner Tom Homes at 178-4 in the 40th over.
Ali Raja came in but was out leg before for 1 at 189-5 before Simon King came in to show off his reverse sweeps and ramp shot. This he did with his usual panache as he scored a run-a-ball 21 in a partnership of 35 with Murtagh, now close to his hundred.
Murtagh’s ton came up in the 48th over from 134 balls. He hit 11 fours in this his ninth century in his 200 1st XI league games. While he seemed to struggle a little with cramp in his hands when in the 90’s, he still was able to scamper singles and two’s to keep up with his target.
With Murtagh’s hundred on the board Luke Beaven opened his shoulders to score 11 off four balls in Patel’s last over before tucking into the 50th over bowled by Tom Deighton with another boundary.
Beaven was caught off the last ball of the innings for 20 from 13 balls, leaving Murtagh unbeaten on 108 not out from 139 balls out of a final score of 254-7.
Ashtead’s opening pair of Guy Harper and Michael Sanderson started off slowly but soon increased the tempo when Harper cracked 14 runs from four balls from Delmont, who was opening the bowling from the pavilion end.
Hodson, however, bowling from his favoured Blue Anchor End, then made the first of three inroads into Ashtead’s batting line-up when he had Sanderson caught behind by Raja for 12 in the 10th over at 46-1. In his next over Hodson took a second wicket when Vaughan-Davies was leg before for 1 at 58-2.
Then Hodson made it three wickets in three overs when he had Harper caught in the deep by Hairs for 39 at 65-3.
Rawat, now partnered with Cameron, is described on his agent’s web site as “the Ranji run machine.” He has played 100 first class matches in India and scored over 5,000 runs at an average of 38.2. He’s played in a number of Indian sides as well as for the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL. The 31-year-old has been close to national selection, but not yet achieved it.
Despite only arriving in the UK two days before the game, Rawat already seemed well-acclimatised and had little trouble with the Priory attack as he and Cameron put on a 50 runs together in 68 balls.
Cameron’s 50 came in 63 balls and Rawat’s in 65 balls. The 100 partnership came up in 126 deliveries with both batsmen scoring at a similar rate.
Cameron features as one of the top three Ashtead batsmen in the past three years scoring around 400 runs per season with an average around 40.
At 179-3, in the 36th over, Ashtead seemed to be in the driver’s seat. They needed a further 76 runs to win with just over 13 overs left, a rate of 5.84, which was well within this pair’s reach.
Normally in a partnership like this Reigate relies on Beaven’s left-arm trickery to solve the problem. But Beaven so far had had two spells totalling seven overs and he’d been hit for 38 runs, most un-Beaven-like figures.
And it was Stevens who provided the breakthrough when Rawat was well caught by Delmont at deepish mid-on. And in his next over Stevens made it a double breakthrough as Cameron was caught by Hairs at short cover for 59.
A threatening 179-3 had become a far less threatening 182-5. And any threat remaining diminished quickly as Ashtead folded with the last five wickets falling for 42 runs. Ashtead’s numbers 7 and 8, Kamran Mirza and Tom Homes, scored 12 and 13 respectively, where Reigate’s equivalents scored 21 and 20 – an important differential in a win by 30 runs.
Kamran Mirza, of course, was returning to Reigate having played in the Reigate 1st XI 14 times between 2003 and 2006 and a further 5 times in 2011-2012 after returning from a four-year stay with Cuckfield in the Sussex Premier Division. He joined Ashtead last season but played only in the 2nds and this game was his 1st team debut as well.
Beaven did help dispatch these tail-end batsmen with two wickets for only seven runs in his last three overs and King got a wicket with the last ball of his 10-over spell. The bowling honours, however, went to Stevens with 3-25 off 8.1 overs and Hodson with 3-46 from his 10-over spell.
But the match ball belonged to Murtagh and Murtagh alone. He had given Priory spectators a batting masterclass on this his 200th Premier Division 1st XI match appearance.