In a tense, heart-stopping finish, Reigate Priory captain Luke Beaven - cool as you like - bowled five dot balls before bowling Waltham danger man Tanweer Sikander for 91 with the last ball of his last over. The wicket gave the Priory a slender 6-run victory with one over to spare over Waltham CC in the Club Cricket Conference Cup third round game at Park Lane on Sunday.
The win puts the Priory through to the quarter-finals of the competition. Waltham were last year's Club Cricket Conference Cup winners.
After winning the toss and electing to bat Reigate Priory suffered early losses. Tom Lister was caught behind by the wicketkeeper off the bowling of Sikander off the fifth ball of the innings. Then six overs later Sikander bowled Chris Murtagh for 14 to make the score 22-2.
Waltham Cricket Club is the invention of its captain, Iftikhar Mehmood, and comprises cricketers from Pakistan, many of whom have played first class cricket in Pakistan and now play in the various English cricket leagues. The club targets various competitions and in 2013 Waltham won both the Club Cricket Conference as well as the Bertie Joel Cup.
As you might expect the Waltham bowling attack features a fair amount of spin and it was this that prevented Priory from scoring at a higher run rate than the 3.76 runs per over they managed over the 45-over innings as the wicket was taking spin and the Priory never looked entirely comfortable against it.
Michael Burgess and Henry Tye put on 28 together for the third wicket off 8.1 overs before Tye was stumped off the bowling of Khawar Kazmi. Burgess and Ramsden put on 29 runs together off 9.1 overs before Burgess left, caught and bowled by Khawar's brother Tauseef Kazmi for 37, the top score of the Priory innings.
From 79-4 Ramsden and Neil Saker pushed the score on a further 31 runs in 8.2 overs before Saker was caught off the bowling of Taqi Abbas. But no-one was able to get on top of the bowling and push the scoring along at 5 or 6 an over, these last three wickets accounting for 88 runs at a rate of 3.43 an over.
After Ramsden left, caught and bowled by Tauseef Kazmi for 32 at 123-6, the best partnership of the innings then ensued as Simon King (15 off 27 balls) combined with Luke Beaven (25 off 28 balls) for 40 runs off 46 balls. Once Beaven was caught off Sikander's bowling the innings quickly folded to 169 runs all out, Sikander ending with 4 wickets for 35 runs.
The Priory's score looked a good 20 runs under par, particularly given Waltham's potential strength of batting.
Sikander, who opened the batting with Mehboob Elahi, for example, plays for Blackheath on Saturdays, the Kent Premier league joint leaders. Not only does he top the club's first team bowling for wickets taken season-to-date (17 at an average of 10.17) but he also tops the batting averages as well with 445 runs season-to-date at an average 55.62. Khawar Kazmi at number three and Naseer Ahmed at number four both have played for Rawalpindi while number five bat Hafiz Yawer Afzal has played for Lahore.
Unusually, Priory opened the bowling with left-arm spinner Beaven as partner to Neil Saker and the tactic paid off handsomely in the sixth over when Beaven had opener Mehboob Elahi leg before and next ball had Khawar Kazmi out leg before as well, for a golden duck.
Beaven then brought on Steven Hirst for the seventh over to bowl his medium-paced 'wobblies', in what proved to be a master-stroke. Hirst has found it hard this year to get into the Priory's 1st XI team on Saturdays. So when he joined Beaven in the attack he wanted to make his mark. He has had two 'six-fers' in his last two 2nd XI games (6-24 on Saturday in a 2nd XI win against Wimbledon and 6-22 the previous Saturday in the 2nd XI win against Weybridge). Now, in a performance he will make sure the Director of Cricket knows all about, he proceeded to rip out the heart of Waltham's batting with wickets in his second, third and fourth over as Waltham slid to 45-5 off 13 overs. Hirst dispatched back to the pavilion Waltham batsmen Naseer Ahmed, Hafiz Yawer and Nomaan Ali with but nine runs between them.
However Sikander was still prospering at the other end with 27 not out. Joined now by Tauseef Kazmi these two put on the largest partnership of the day – 54 runs in 17.2 overs before Tauseef was bowled by offspinner Simon King for 22, Sikander by now having reached his 50 off 72 balls.
At 99-6 Waltham were still very much in the game. Despite Hirst's impressive bowling of 3-19 off his nine overs, Waltham needed 71 runs to win off 15 overs. Wicketkeeper Naeem Amin and Sikander upped the scoring rate to more than 5 runs an over as they tucked into the bowling of Saker and Chris Wigley in a 33-run partnership over 6.3 overs before Beaven had Amin leg before for 15 at 132-7.
Waltham now needed 38 runs to win off 7.2 overs and Taqi Abbas and Sikander hit 17 of these off the following 3.3 overs, keeping up a five runs per over scoring rate, before Abbas was stumped off Wigley for 12.
Iftikhar Mehmood came in at 149-8 with 21 needed for victory and 5.1 overs to go. Mehmood is noted for putting this team together but he is not known for any bowling or batting prowess. However he can scamper. And with Sikander calling the shots singles and two's were run aggressively. In a partnership of 13 runs in three overs Mehmood scored only one run before being run out by Beaven. But the run rate of 4.3 an over during this partnership had kept Waltham on track, now needing 8 runs to win with 2.1 overs to go.
Off the last ball of Donovan's over Sikander hit a single setting up what Sir Alex Ferguson, the ex-Manchester United manager, so elegantly refers to as 'squeaky bum time'. Beaven bowling to Sikander. Seven needed to win and 12 balls to go.
Sikander was sitting in the 'catbird seat'. He was probably by now seeing the cricket ball like a football. He could hit a boundary and scramble the three remaining singles in the last over with number 11 batsman Arslan Shahid, or he could hit a single and reckon on scoring the last six runs from the final over when he would not be facing Beaven. But Sikander, on 91, could do neither. As if bowling a Sunday afternoon net, Beaven wheeled away, each of five balls landing exactly where it should and denying Sikander any scoring stroke. For the sixth ball, in desperation, Sikander slashed. He missed the ball, deceived by the flight, and Beaven bowled him. Beaven's final figures were 9 overs, 4 maidens,15 runs for 4 wickets.
