Llamas go clear at top with comprehensive win

Reigate Priory crushed Valley End Saturday by beating the visitors by eight wickets with a whopping 64 overs to spare. The win puts the Priory on top of the Premier Division with 135 points, 10 points above Cranleigh with 125 points.
Valley End took no bonus points from the game and remains in bottom place in the tables with 31 points.
Within 40 minutes of the game starting, Valley End, who had been asked to bat, had lost five wickets for just 28 runs. Priory all-rounder Andy Delmont had three of these wickets within the first three overs he bowled as he found conditions conducive to his left-arm swing, despite there being little cloud on a hot summer’s day.
In his first over Delmont had Valley End opener Paul Williams leg before for nought at 4-1. In his next over opener Darren Redwood was caught behind by Ali Raja for 4 at 7-2 and in his third over Delmont bowled Daniel Vernon for 8 at 12-3.
Will Hodson chipped in with his first wicket in the 10th over when he had Valley End skipper Tom Nevin leg before for 7 at 19-4. Then Richard Stevens bowled the Valley End number six, Stuart Tomlinson, for 5 to leave half the side out for 28 runs in the 17th over.
Wicket-keeper Ben Kingsnorth and number seven batsman Mark Collier put up a resistance of sorts by doubling the score to 57 before Collier was caught behind by Raja off Hodson for 15.
Kingsnorth, who took 29 balls to get off the mark, did top score with 23 off 79 balls before he too was caught by Raja off the bowling of Luke Beaven, just as the lunch gong sounded with Valley End going in to eat on a distinctly unappetising score of 63-7.
After lunch the last three wickets took 40 minutes to dispatch as Ryan Macciocchi was leg before to Beaven for 10 and Mitchell Turner was well caught at forward short leg by Ben Shoare off Simon King for 1.
Alex Mendis, who left the Priory at the end of the 2011 season to join the Valley End side, made it into double figures batting at number 11 but he became Raja’s fourth victim caught behind the stumps, this time off the bowling of Stevens to leave Valley End all out for 90 from 41.2 overs.
Of the pace bowlers, Delmont took 3-16 from 7 overs, Hodson 2-27 from 14 overs and Stevens 2-18 from 7.2 overs.
The spinners between them took three wickets with Beaven taking 2-16 from 9 overs and King 1-12 from 4 overs.
With Richard Oliver in top form, it took the Priory just 13.5 overs to get the required runs to win at a rate of 6.7 runs an over. Oliver scored the lion’s share of the reply with a not out 71 from 44 balls, a strike rate of 161.4.
It was Oliver at his best, carefully dissecting the field with an ease that made you think you too could bat like this. Of his 71 runs, 44 came in boundaries with an additional six as a coup de grace to end the game. His 50 came in 32 balls.
Bradley Scriven, was middling every ball before Mendis took a stunning caught and bowled chance at a score of 21. Scriven hit the ball in the middle of the bat and the ball looked to be going over the bowler’s head for a boundary. However Mendis is 6 foot 7 inches tall. With the bowler jumping for the catch and with his arm stretched upwards, his reach must have approached 9 feet. The ball hit his upstretched hand and stuck. Scriven was out for nought.
Shoare made 4 runs in a partnership of 32 with Oliver, before he was caught behind off the persevering Mendis. Then Murtagh joined the Priory opener to finish off the game.
Oliver was merciless on the Valley End bowlers. He scored 18 runs off one over from Steve Wellman and in another over from Mark Collier, he and Murtagh between them took 15 runs. This pair ended with an unbroken stand of 40 runs in just over five overs, of which Murtagh’s share was 17 not out.
Oliver’s 71 not out makes his tally for the season 419 runs at 46.56.