Thursday's T20 thrills

Put into bat on a slow turner, Miller and Sanderson started steadily enough for Ashtead, but even these two creative stroke players, struggled to get the ball away. A combination of accurate bowling and high quality fielding, both of which have taken Priory to the top of the Surrey Championship Premier Division, kept the Ashtead run-rate well below what would have ordinarily been considered par for the course. Simon King was a particular handful, bowling his four overs for a miserly 13.

Miller striking the ball cleanly, but seemingly always finding the fielders, was eventually out, caught off the bowling of Hirst for 24. He was replaced by Vaughan-Davies, who equally struggled to get the ball away. When Vaughan-Davies holed out to long-off for 4, followed soon by Sanderson for 24, the momentum seemed to have swung significantly in Priory's favour.

T20 cricket is all about momentum and with the momentum knocked out of the Ashtead innings, overs began to dwindle and the pressure to push on with the scoring rate mounted. Paul Harrison, the only batsman of any real experience left in a young side, did his best to shepherd his more junior partners through the last few crucial overs. However, wickets fell steadily, with four falling to Wigley for 13, and when eventually Harrison too was done by the slowness of the wicket, it was clear that a score below 100, was looming.

The innings closed dead on 90, no doubt lower than the Ashtead fans would have been hoping for, but at least enough to give some hope if they bowled well. Intelligently, Deighton took the new ball himself and was immediately rewarded with exaggerated spin which however, manifested itself in a couple of legside wides. The child prodigy, Tom Homes opened from the other end, took two balls to find his length and then bowled Tye with his fourth ball. When Deighton had Murtagh caught by Harrison for 2, things were starting to get interesting.

Interest increased still further when Homes picked up a couple more in his second over and when his fourth over added one more, the score was suddenly 11 for 5 and Ashtead's 90, seemed a rather different proposition. But Priory are not top of the `Premier Division for no reason and Saker and Lister calmly went about rebuilding the Priory innings. Rotating the strike intelligently and resisting the big shot, they gradually pulled things back and a 50 run partnership put the game back in balance.

With Tom Homes and Tom Deighton bowled out, it was left to fellow spinners Sam Homes and Paul Colen to keep up the good work. This they did splendidly restricting Priory to 1s and 2s which were never quite enough with the run rate climbing above 7. When the score had reached 67, the pressure finally told and an injudicious shot saw the end of Lister for a hard fought 19.

Vaughan-Davies had by now joined the bowling attack and with Deighton sensibly holding back one over from himself (which also contributed a wicket) it came down to the final over with 17 runs needed. Vaughan-Davies started well enough, when Hirst was caught by Williams, but a hastily run single bought Saker onto the strike. An enormous 6 by Saker, cleared the Reigate pavilion and brought the large group of supporters to their feet. However, Vaughan-Davies held his nerve splendidly and two full length balls produced only a couple of singles to leave Priory 6 runs short in a thrilling encounter. Tom Homes at the age of 16, finished with the remarkable figures of 4 overs, 2 maidens, four wickets for 3 runs, but this was an all round team effort which will be talked about for many a year.

Ashtead now look forward to their first ever finals day on 27th July.

Richard Laudy