Stewart and Barnett see Horley through to Surrey Trust final

Horley put Ashford in and they made 26 before Oscar Hofmann bowled Arshad Vohra with a superb yorker.

Older brother Will Hofmann then executed a perfect pick-up-and-throw on the move to run out the other opener with a direct hit but that brought Ibrar Shahid to the wicket and he proceeded to take the Horley attack apart for a few overs, scoring 44 off 24 balls (six fours and two sixes).

However, when skipper Barnett brought himself on, he had him caught and bowled off his first delivery.

Barnett picked up two more wickets in quick succession, one bowled and one caught behind by Artie Hoskins, then bowled another after drinks to finish his game-changing seven-over spell with figures of 4-20.

Ashford were struggling at 115-6 and although the next pair put on 25, they were soon back in trouble. Kieran Childs took a catch off Alex Field in the 25th over, Field missed out on a caught-and-bowled chance, but then Childs came into the attack and struck to dismiss Varun Thakur lbw for 20 in the 32nd over.

Evan Grimwood bowled Aryan Gupta for 15 in the next and Childs (2-4) promptly bowled the last man to send Ashford to the tea interval at 167 all out.

Horley’s pinch-hitter Ryan Bunn only managed to score nine (two fours) before being caught but Udith Molanguri and Stewart took the score to 50 before Molanguri was well caught for 24 at the end of the 12th over.

Dave Keyte and Hoskins both got into double figures before Mansoor Malik dismissed them and when Childs followed, Horley were 93-5 in the 23rd over and in need of a good partnership.

Stewart and Barnett obliged, staying together for 16 overs to take Horley all the way to the winning line.

It was a struggle at times, as the Ashford attack proved tough to score from and the skipper mixed and matched his bowlers in search of a breakthrough.

Stewart was at the crease for just over two hours in total and reached his 50 in the 33rd over when the total was 139. He ended up on 68 not out from 122 balls (nine fours) while Barnett made 36 not out from 32 balls, including five fours, the last of which won the match with 1.4 overs to spare.

Horley had gone into this match missing several of their regular players, and so were delighted with the win.

They will now play either Trinity-Midwhitgiftian or Chobham in the Surrey Trust Tier Two final at Merstham on Sunday, September 1.