Hat-trick of wins for Horley cricketers

Having secured the Surrey Championship Division Five title last week, with two games to spare, this week Horley 1st XI travelled to mid table Thames Ditton, looking to carry on the fine form they’ve shown all season long.

Charlie Robins won the toss and elected to field first after seeing a very green pitch and plenty of cloud cover on a gloomy Saturday afternoon.

Usual suspects Will Taylor (3-28) and Guy Derham (1-31) spearheaded the attack for Horley, with Taylor especially getting the most of out the pitch early on, due to some very disciplined line and length. He was rewarded in the fifth over, getting one to hit the shoulder of the bat, followed by a good catch diving forward by Adam Stephenson in the gully.

Just three balls later Horley had their second, Derham moving the ball back into the other Ditton opener, clean bowling him and reducing Ditton to 8-2 at the start of the sixth over.

Henry Weir (18) and Matthew Smith (12) were doing their best to lead an early rebuild, however Taylor and Derham weren’t giving too much away.

Ben Davies replaced Derham in the 14th over and it didn’t take him long to get into his work. With his first five balls he removed both Weir and Smith, finding a way through their defences in almost identical fashion. At 43-4, Daniel Kennedy and Iniyan Kumar needed to get the score moving along, and with Davies not giving away much from his end, they looked to attack the opposite end with Robins mixing up his bowlers. However, Davies made the breakthrough, crashing another into the stumps, this time to remove Kumar for 21.

The score quickly moved from 89-5 to 100-6 in the 30th over, with Davies on the warpath. Kennedy (22), charging down the wicket, could only slap one straight to Will Taylor at a short extra cover, and he held an excellent catch.

Jarrod Francis (25), the Ditton overseas player, came in looking to be aggressive, knowing his team needed as many runs as possible on a pitch that was misbehaving on the odd occasion.

After a terrific spell from Davies (4-22), Adam Stephenson (1-11) was thrown the ball, bowling in tandem with returning opener Taylor. After a couple of lusty blows from Francis, Stephenson got a delivery to just hold its line, and Francis could only edge it to the safe hands of Regan Derham at first slip.

Taylor removed Khizar Moti (13), in the next over, and with the score at 134-8, the end of the innings was nigh. Taylor found one more in his last over, then Will Hofmann (1-26) got the number 11 caught at mid-wicket by Stephenson to conclude the innings in the 41st over, with Ditton all out for 141.

With no Ben Remfry available for the final two games, Aryan Patel (10) joined the ever-present Regan Derham at the top of the innings. Both got off to a decent start, with Derham being his usual aggressive self, trying to take away the bulk of the chase early on.

Patel was the first wicket to fall, with Ayush Vishwanath getting him caught behind down the leg side in the seventh over. At 34-1, Derham was joined by his main partner in crime this season, CP Singh (48 not out).

The pair were looking dominant in the middle, picking off runs at will, and even with Ditton skipper Mike Dixon chopping and changing his bowlers, nothing was working.

Derham brought up his 50 in the 16th over, before James Stephenson (1-27) claimed his scalp for 55 in the 19th over, when a mistimed pull shot went to Kumar at mid-wicket. Another 50-plus partnership from the pair had brought Horley up to 117-2 and Davies (8 not out) now joined Singh.

They only needed another four overs to finish the job, with Singh’s 48 not out taking him to over 800 runs in the league this season.

Horley finish their league campaign at home next weekend, with Kingstonian making the journey to Horley Row.

Horley 2nd XI go into next Saturday’s Surrey 2nd XI Premier Division title decider at Roehampton on the back of a massive 142-run win over Putney.

The visitors opted to field first at Horley Row, despite being one player short to start with, due to a late arrival. Ben Stewart and Toby Davie put on 88 for the first wicket, gradually accelerating to the point when the run-rate was seven an over by the 11th over.

The missing fielder turned up after 12 overs and Stewart was out lbw for a well-made and skilful 43 (51 balls, six fours) in the 14th.

Richard Waddington teamed up with Davie and took the score on to 133-1 at drinks, before Davie reached his 50, but then Waddington was out for 28, caught by Rohit Deshmukh off Gary Peters in the 26th over, with the score on 162.

Matt Ware went cheaply, skipper Jon Barnett reached 17 with a six and was then well caught by a sprinting Rohit next ball. The next four batters only scored ten runs between them and Horley collapsed to 219-8.

Davie had been struggling to maintain his momentum as the wickets fell at the other end and his bid for a century was halted on 88 when he drove one to Harry Baldwin off Amogh Bendre in the 41st over. It was fine, 91-ball innings from Davie, who has been in a rich vein of form, and it included nine fours.

Alex Field (15 not out) and Trevor Stevens (one not out) saw out the remaining overs and took the score on to 239-9, with Field hitting two fours.

Putney were never in contention in their reply. Chris Webber took the first two wickets in the fourth over, the first smartly caught by Field at backward point and the second caught behind by Davie.

The score became 20-3 at the end of the seventh over when both batters ended up at the same end and Field’s throw to Davie was sent on down to the bowler’s end where Dan Sired broke the stumps to dismiss Rolf Merchant.

Ben Gallop made 14 before Sired caught him off Baksh. Stevens took the next wicket, bowling Rohit, then Will Cole and Harry Baldwin put on 19 for the sixth wicket before Baksh (3-26) struck again, thanks to a catch from Barnett.

The skipper was making frequent bowling changes and brought Matt Gainsford on in the 26th over and he promptly took two wickets, both lbw. Putney’s top-scorer Baldwin was finally out caught and bowled by Gainsford for 23 off the first ball of the 30th over and Baksh took the last wicket as a catch by Sired finished the job, with Putney all out for 97 from 34.5 overs.

Horley are guaranteed at least a second-place finish in the league. They are 11 points behind leaders Roehampton and will hope to snatch the title next Saturday.

A heroic knock of 87 not out from under-14s player Henrick Cook helped Horley 3rd XI secure a 49-run victory at Warnham to finish their Sussex Division 11 West (North) season on top of the table. They must now wait to see if Steyning can overhaul them by winning their last match next Saturday.

If Horley finish second, they will contest a promotion play-off against the second-placed team from 11 West (South).

At Warnham, Horley were put in on a very green wicket and the home bowlers started well, restricting the scoring and putting the pressure on. Opening with Cook, Dave Hyde found the boundary twice before Mark Bellamy bowled him for nine. Warnham then took control of the game, picking up the wickets of Khyan Patel, Aidan Spalding and Dirk Douglas to have Horley reeling at 23-4.

Cook and Rob Rigby started to show signs of life for Horley before Warnham struck again with Gregg Maxam taking the catch to dismiss Rigby for 13 off Bellamy. More wickets followed and Horley were 60-7 before Cook and the tail came to the rescue. Ryan Smith (14) helped take the score to 60, then Oscar Hofmann (20) scored more vital runs, before Cook and Dave Childs were left to take the score as far on as they could from 132-9.

They did a terrific job, putting on a partnership of 57 and batting out the remaining overs to take Horley to a total of 189-9 from 40 overs – something which had not looked at all likely earlier in the afternoon. Cook finished on 87 not out from 116 balls (16 fours) and Childs was 16 not out (three fours).

Horley looked to start strongly with Hofmann and Smith opening the attack. Both started well but Warnham brought the fight to Horley, getting off to a good start before Hofmann found his first with a catch by skipper Kieran Childs.

A good partnership then formed for Warnham which found Horley struggling to find a breakthrough as the score went from 22-1 into the 70s.

A change in bowling was needed and Horley found their feet, with Dave Childs and Liam Adams bringing the pressure to Warnham with Childs taking 3-31, including the big wicket of opener Jordan Crow, out for 55 with a catch from Hofmann.

The hosts were now 110-5 and another bowling change worked, as Spalding took a wicket and Hofmann (2-20 from nine overs) came back on to take the next. Smith and Patel took the eighth and ninth wickets and good fielding and bowling from Horley restricted Warnham from getting the remaining runs as they batted out the rest of the overs to finish on 140-9.