Horley's hopes are hanging by a thread

Horley 1st XI beat Cheam by six wickets and are third in Surrey Division Four East but now need to beat top-of-the-table Sutton next Saturday while hoping second-placed London Gymkhana lose to rock-bottom Cheam.

The 3rd XI beat Crawley 3rd XI to move above them and into second spot in Sussex Division Ten West. Crawley Eagles 5th XI, who are top, cannot be promoted as their 4th XI are already in the league above, so Horley, Crawley and Horsham Trinity are fighting for the two promotion places. Horley have played all their games and need one of their two rivals to lose in their last match next weekend, as both can overtake them if they win. Crawley are away at eighth-placed Goring and Trinity are at home to seventh-placed Littlehampton, Clapham and Patching.

The 1st XI’s match against Cheam showed the gulf between top and bottom of the Division Four East table as Horley sailed home with a six-wicket victory after a dominant display with the ball.

With skipper Regan Derham returning to action, he inevitably lost the toss and much to his surprise, Cheam elected to bat on a Horley Row track that was damp, due to the covers not dealing with the biblical levels of rain the day before.

Will Taylor and Ben Davies started things off for Horley and after a couple of spicy deliveries from Taylor hit the gloves of opening bat Ishaan Shetty, Davies took advantage, rapping him on the pads and dismissing him for an 18-ball duck at the end of the sixth over.

In the next over, 8-1 became 8-2 with Taylor claiming an lbw of his own to remove the Cheam captain Behzad Khalid. It wasn’t getting any better for the visitors as Taylor found another in his next over and Davies picked up Horley’s fourth at the end of the tenth over, leaving Cheam reeling at 15-4.

Yasir Virk (31) came in and signalled intent from his first ball, trying to put Taylor over the squash courts, knowing that attempting to survive on this wicket was only going to end one way. Davies (3-22) was still doing damage the other end though, clean bowling Vishnu Vikram in the 14th to reduce Cheam to 25-5.

Horley had to stay patient for their next with Virk getting his side to 47 before rain halted play for about ten minutes. This might have helped the home side, as Adam Stephenson (1-16) picked up Horley’s next wicket three balls after the delay as Cheam slumped to 53-6.

Irfaan Baksh (1-22) picked up the big wicket of Virk in the 23rd over, with the batsman only able to pick out Ben Remfry at long-on. Cheam number eight Rashid Khan (16 not out) was now proving to be a thorn in Horley’s side; even though he wasn’t scoring quickly, he was solid in defence, and with more rain looming, Horley needed to take three wickets as quickly as they could. The returning Taylor took two in two balls in the 28th over and at 85-9, the end of Cheam’s innings was nigh.

After Taylor had finished his spell on 4-23, Jon Barnett (1-2) only needed four balls to pick up the last wicket, a smart catch from Stephenson over his head at long-on seeing Cheam all out for 90 before 30 overs had been bowled.

If the weather radar was right, Horley had roughly an hour to put 91 on the board and avoid a potential abandoned game. However, they got off to the worst start possible, Derham picking out Virk at mid-wicket off the first ball of the innings, which was bowled by Kicho Renganath (2-23).

Remfry (37) and CP Singh (18) settled the ship to put any Horley nerves to bed. Remfry was being his usual aggressive self, with the highlight of his innings being an exquisite lofted drive that landed on top of the clubhouse.

With the score sitting on 50, Remfry went for one shot too many, having already taken Khalid (2-25) for 18 in his first five balls, he could only find Virk at mid-off.

Singh had been ticking it over at the other end, playing a perfect supporting role to Remfry, but Horley always like to make things interesting. Renganath found his second victim, with Barnett falling first ball, clipping one off his legs to Umer Yawar at mid-wicket to reduce Horley to 59-3 at the end of the seventh over. That became 59-4 two balls later, Khalid picking up his second, with Singh clothing one out to Renganath on the mid-wicket boundary.

Luke Smith (18 not out) and Davies (14 not out) made sure that nothing else untoward happened, both striking at more than a run a ball, and at the start of the 12th over, Smith hit back-to-back boundaries to see Horley over the line.

Horley 3rd XI played through a couple of hours of continuous windswept rain to earn their win at Crawley.

With rain threatening from the start, Horley put the hosts in, hoping to bowl them out quickly, but Crawley dug in against challenging opening spells from Ryan Smith and Alex Field and were 24-0 after ten overs.

Field (1-19) finally made the breakthrough in the 14th over, as skipper Kieran Childs caught Waqas Malik off a long hop. A couple of catches were dropped and the teams played on through two heavy rain showers before Horley broke through with four wickets in four overs. Dan Farmer calmly held two catches at long-on to dismiss Faisal Rehman (32) off Smith, then Sai Kumar Guntoju (12) off Khyan Patel, then Matt Ware’s safe hands at long-off accounted for Midhum Mohan off Smith (2-23) and Patel (2-32) caught and bowled Abdullah Abdullah in the 25th over and suddenly Crawley had gone from 64-1 to 75-5.

In the 28th over, after a couple of warnings, five penalty runs were awarded against Crawley for running on the wicket, and the same thing happened again a few balls later.

After Ryan Bunn just failed to hang on to a sharp caught and bowled chance, Will Hofmann (2-38) had Danish Siddique lbw.

In the next over, Hofmann was sure he had caught Jibran Mirza on the boundary off Bunn but the square-leg umpire said it was a six. Razwan Hussain – down in the 3rd XI after playing in Crawley’s 1st and 2nd XIs for almost the whole season – and Mirza put on 33 in three overs before Hofmann bowled Mirza for 22 at the end of the 38th over and Crawley finished their 40 overs on 154-7.

Horley’s first aim in their reply was to get to 20 overs so the match result would count, and then to stay ahead of the DLS required target, so when the persistent rain which was falling from the start of their innings finally forced the teams off, they would win.

Tom Jowett and Bunn fell in the first two overs and Nick Chadwick and Matt Ware took the score on to 45 before Chadwick was caught at the start of the eight over.

Ware and Farmer played sensibly to take Horley to 76 before Ware was lbw to a ball which skidded along the wet pitch in the 15th over.

Farmer was out two overs later and at 88-5 Horley still had work to do. Field and Childs then put together a vital 11-over partnership of 45 for the sixth wicket, keeping ahead of the DLS target throughout. They started slowly, knowing they only needed around three an over, but Field then opened up to hit two massive sixes and Childs ensured they ran at every opportunity. The score moved on to 133, well ahead of the required rate, before the skipper was bowled by Siddique for 11 at the start of the 29th over.

By now the pitch was saturated and when Field’s bat slipped out of his hands and flew to mid-off as he swung and missed and was bowled for 39 at the end of the 30th over, the captains and umpire agreed conditions had become unsafe and Horley finished on 143-7 to win by three wickets.

Horley 2nd XI’s away match at Morden was cancelled due to a saturated pitch.