A bravura innings of 71 in 48 balls by opener Richie Oliver made light work of Reigate Priory's run chase Saturday after Luke Beaven (4-51), Neil Saker (3-21) and Steven Hirst (3-17) had ensured any such run chase against Valley End was not going to be onerous. The five wicket win and the 166 runs chased down kept the Priory on top of the Premier Division table in the Surrey Championship with seven wins from seven games and 78 points - 33 points ahead of Sutton, the Priory's nearest rival.
Valley End was the second team promoted into the Surrey Championship Premier Division at the end of the 2013 season, along with Leatherhead. Its web site calls the club 'the biggest little club in Surrey'. Prior to promotion into the Premier Division its biggest cricketing occasion had been winning the Npower Village Cup at Lords in September 2008. Indeed five of the current team played in that Lords game six years ago.
However promotion has not been easy for Valley End as the team came into this game with only two points from the season, so far, from two abandoned games, and four losses.
Having won the toss and deciding to bat on a sunny June day, Valley End were put on the back foot almost from the start as Neil Saker, Reigate's captain and opening fast bowler, had opener Andrew Newbery leg before from the last ball of the first over. Three overs later Saker had number three bat and Valley End captain Darren Redwood well caught by Andy Delmont to make the score 14-2.
For the next 10 overs, or so, Valley End defended. When Richard Stevens was hit by the Australian overseas player Chris MacDougal for 10 runs in one over, Saker brought on to bowl at the Blue Anchor End Reigate's left-arm spinner and wicket-taker-in-chief, Luke Beaven.
In the English winter months , but in his summer, MacDougal is captain of the 1st XI of the St. George's grade club in Sydney, a first-class grade club which boasts among a host of Test players, Sir Donald Bradman as an alumnus.
If you've read about Bradman's 1930 tour in England you'll know he scored 974 runs at an average of 139.14 with a hundred, two double-centuries and a triple (the 334 at Leeds).
However most Englishmen's favourite Bradman innings is his last Test innings at the Oval in 1948 when Eric Hollies the Warwickshire spinner bowled him second ball for a duck. According to the late John Arlott, that doyen of cricket commentators and writers, Bradman played for Hollies's leg break, but was bowled a googly instead. Bradman played down the wrong line.
Many Englishmen are happy in the notion Australians have a weakness against spin following Jim Laker's summer of 1956 when in that famous Test Match at Old Trafford the Surrey offspiner returned figures of 19-90.
As to whether this particular Australian from Valley End might be a good player of spin, or not, didn't take long to find out. He lasted only two more balls than Bradman did in 1948. For on the fourth ball he received from Beaven, MacDougal played forward down a line that anticipated Beaven's ball turning. But there was no spin on that particular ball. The ball 'skidded through', as Beaven puts it, and bowled him. Like his illustrious predecessor, MacDougal had played for spin that was never there. He played down the wrong line.
Batting at number five for Valley End is Alex MacQueen, just 21-years-old, but with five first class games under his belt for Leeds-Bradford MCCU and a variety of games for Surrey 2nds and Northants 2nds. And he and Paul Williams, the opener, continued a watchful brief. Williams was defensive throughout his innings of 28 from 109 balls. Indeed as Beaven from one end and Simon King, the offspinner, from the other, reeled off over after over, Williams's straight bat became a permanent feature. With lunch approaching at 13:30, Reigate dashed through a King over, his seventh, and got into position for one more Beaven over before lunch. And that was the over that broke this partnership of 55 runs as Williams was snapped up by Henry Tye at forward short leg off Beaven for 28 and Valley End were 96-4 at the break. Chalk one up for Reigate Priory's positive attitude in sneaking in that additional over.
MacQueen and wicketkeeper Ben Kingsnorth put on 42 together after lunch as MacQueen went past a well-struck 50 before skying a ball to Beaven off Hirst for 60. A few balls later Kingsnorth was leg before wicket to Saker for 22 and at 141-6, the innings was effectively over. Mopping up duties went to Beaven and Hirst who both picked up two wickets apiece as Valley End closed on 163 off 64.1 overs.
Anyone attending the game at this point when Reigate Priory openers Richie Oliver and Andrew Delmont strode out to the wicket might be forgiven for thinking he or she was watching a Twenty20 game. For after four balls as a sighter, Oliver proceeded to hit 16 runs off the second over, 12 runs off the fourth over as he raced to his 50 off only 30 balls, a strike rate of 167.
This was not bludgeoning and brute force as a Botham might play, but rather very skilful placement of the ball into areas where there is no fielder. Move your fielder from A to B and instead of hitting it to B, Oliver will now hit it to A, a ploy that must madden opposition captains.
By the time Oliver's tour de force ended in a Pietersen-like dismissal, caught on the long-off boundary by MacQueen for 71, the game had lost its sting. Reigate Priory were 118 -1 off 17.1 overs. Only 46 more runs were needed to win and there were still more than 42 overs that could be bowled.
Reigate lost four more wickets getting to this win as batsmen came and went, but, in fairness, Oliver had not left them much to do. Delmont went for 49. Craig Cachopa took a few balls to get his eye in and then hit a 4, a 6 and another 4 in rapid succession before being caught on the boundary.
So far this season, in five innings, Oliver has scored 331 runs (off 335 balls) for an average of 66.2. This places him third in the Surrey Championship Premier Division batting averages. His partner Delmont, thanks to two unbeaten centuries and an unbeaten half-century tops the batting averages with 341 runs at an average of 85.25.
No prizes for guessing who tops the Surrey Championship Premier Division bowling averages. So far this season Beaven in 71.5 overs has taken 23 wickets for 179 runs for an average per wicket of just 7.78 runs.
