Reigate Priory CC 2nd’s v Sutton 2nd’s

After last week’s last ball victory at Park Lane by the Llama 1st team, the Park Lane spectators were treated to yet another last ball, nerve jangling and nail biting finish.

With the summer making a timely return after weeks of rain affected games, Galer won the toss and chose the option of runs on the board rather than chasing under scoreboard pressure.

With availability a problem there was the usual batch of team changes that saw only 3 players from the opening league game and only 3 players from last week’s game with the 1st game for 4 years for Jonathan Perkins and 1st appearances in the 2’s for Matt Crighton (from the Pirates) and a late call up for Peter Friend; and all were to play a part.

Matt Crighton and Jordan Bunyan opened and it was Jordan who was 1st out when a shot from Matt was deflected by bowler Nick Clark back onto the stumps at the non striker’s end where Jordan (9) was adjudged to have left his ground with the score now 20-1 in the 6th over.

The Llamas then lost a batch of wickets as Jonathan Perkins (1) was bowled by David Mitchell and then Henry Tye (9) was bowled by U15 George Duckworth (6-1-12-1) as the Llamas went from 24-2 to 37-3 and then 39-4 in the 18th over as Matt Crighton was caught for a patient 18.

The rebuild started with Galer and Jonny Flanders and order was slowly restored as the score moved to 75 in the 32nd over before a straight drive from Galer (19) didn’t quite get past Sam Schofield at mid on and Jon was run out to be the 5th wicket to fall.

George Elliston joined Jonny Flanders and the pair began to get on top of the bowlers and the run rate increased, with George getting 40 from 39 balls as the pair put on a 78 run partnership before George was bowled by David Mitchell with the score now 153-6 in the 45th over.

Max Coyle then smashed a 4 that almost skimmed Jonny Flanders head before Max (6) was caught to become David Mitchell’s 3rd victim (10-02-28-3) and Mobeen (1) was out lbw shortly after to see the Llamas at 165-7 and then 167-8 in the 48th over.

Meanwhile Jonny Flanders had passed a chanceless 50 to reach 60 and went on to be undefeated and with Peter Friend (8 no) they got the Llamas up to 184-8 after their 50 overs which from 39-4 after 16 overs would prove to be a tough target on this challenging wicket.

George Elliston opened the bowling and Sutton Captain/wicket keeper/opening bat Jamie Griffin survived a strong lbw appeal on the 1st ball before George bowled a short ball that Jamie (2) could only fend off to be caught and bowled by George for the breakthrough in the 1st over at 4-1. Sam Schofield was then bowled by Mobeen with a ball that hardly got off the ground and Sutton’s reply was now 18-2 in the 4th over.

George had already bowled one beamer and received a warning and as he over stretched his side he bowled another and his injury meant he couldn’t complete his over and had to retire. The Sutton umpire confirmed that George wouldn’t have been allowed to bowl anyway. I’m not sure we would agree with this interpretation as we didn’t believe the deliveries to be dangerous (too far away from the batsman) but as George couldn’t bowl anyway this hardly mattered.

The spinners then took over as Peter Friend (10-1-27-1) and Ollie Simms (10-3-27-1) bowled their 10 over spells in tandem with almost identical figures. Plenty of encouragement was offered along the way with shouts of “come on Dad” from the boundary for Peter. They each got a wicket with Friendy striking first getting Aarav Rajinkanth (7) lbw for 45-3 in the 15th over and then Jay Evemy, who had patiently reached 28 from 63 balls, was caught by Jonny Perkins diving forward off Ollie’s bowling to see Sutton now 65-4 in the 22nd over.
When the spin pair had finished after 30 overs the score was 90-4.

Sutton needed to accelerate if they were to chase down their target and they did just that as David Mitchell and Krishna Rackal began to push the score along. Henry Tye took over the spin duties and in his 2nd over (the 33rd) Henry clean bowled David Mitchell (24) for 102-5.

The Llamas took a further grip on the game as Mobeen got his 2nd wicket when Jonny Perkins, diving forward again, caught Krishna Rackal (34) for 126-6 and then Henry got his revenge on young George Duckworth when he clean bowled George (0) for 137-7 in the 43rd over.

The required run rate was up at a run a ball but not for very long as hard hitting Sutton youngster Lekan Ogunlana began to take on the Llamas, scoring boundaries at will.

The Llamas stemmed the tide when Mobeen (10-0-36-4) had Aiden Sheridan (6) caught by George Elliston for 160-8 in the 46th over before Henry claimed his 3rd clean bowled victim getting Robert Griffin (2) with the score now 165-9 in the 48th over.

The Llamas were surely favourites (weren’t they ?) with 2 overs left and Sutton still needing 20 runs with just 1 wicket left....BUT
Lekan Ogunlana hadn’t finished and he continued to smash his way to a cracking 50 and got Sutton to the point of needing 1 to tie and 2 to win off the last ball when he hit Mobeen to mid off to be caught by Max Coyle with the Llamas claiming their 6th win of the season to cement mid table 5th place with games against Weybridge (3rd) & Wimbledon (top) to come.

Yet another good game with this week’s honours belonging to Jonny Flanders with 60 no.