Gainsford takes six but Horley can only draw against Ashford

Horley elected to bowl and the opening duo Will Taylor (1-53) and skipper Robins (1-45), soon made the breakthrough, with Robins striking in the second over. After three overs from Robins, Ben Davies (1-32) came into the attack and claimed his sole victim in the tenth over to reduce Ashford to 32-2.

Parveen Jakhar (40) and Rajesh Sharma (73) led the rebuild, with Sharma looking imperious, dealing with the Horley quicks with ease. Robins turned to Adam Stephenson who slowed the run rate down, but didn’t find a breakthrough in his six overs.

With the score on 131-2 off 25 overs, up stepped Gainsford to dismiss Jakhar with his third ball, caught by Robins, then trap Tanmai Desai lbw next ball. With Robins keeping it tight down the other end, Gainsford found the crucial wicket of Sharma in the 30th over, to leave Ashford 154-5. Good Horley fielding led to another Gainsford wicket and a Stephenson run out.

Gurpal Hundal (16 not out) was trying his best to find runs where he could, but he ran out of partners with Taylor taking one wicket and Gainsford picking up two more to finish with his best figures for the club, 6-27. Ashford were all out for 191, giving Horley 62 overs to chase it down.

Regan Derham (24) and Toby Davie opened the batting and although Derham was going well, both openers fell in the space of two overs, Davie to Gurpal Hundal and Derham to Aftab Afridi (3-42), who then dismissed Jon Barnett in the same over, leaving Horley 31-3 after 10 overs. Aryan Patel (17) and Ben Davies (48) tried to consolidate, but Patel went lbw to Wendell Sebastian.

Davies and Richard Waddington (22) took Horley from 63-4 to 120 before Davies fell to a good catch at midwicket off Yasiru Ratnayaka. Waddington edged one to slip in the next over off the returning Afridi, meaning Horley still needed 70 runs from 22 overs.

Under-16s player Luke Smith (24 not out) was doing a great job down one end, showing maturity well beyond his years, but unfortunately was running out of partners, due to Rajesh Sharma (3-26) cleaning up the Horley tail. His three wickets in six overs left the score at 155-9. When Robins joined Smith with eight overs left, they turned their eyes to the draw. Apart from Robins getting hit on the toe, both batsmen survived to secure the losing draw, with Smith batting for 22 overs.

Horley have slipped to fourth in the table and play second-placed Cobham Avorians next Saturday.

Horley 2nd XI lost by three wickets to Staines and Laleham, who have taken their place at the top of Surrey 2nd XI Division One.

Horley elected to bat on what turned out to be a slow low wicket at Staines and they made a nightmare start, losing both openers early before Josh Mason and Matthew Reid dug in. Runs were hard to come by and wickets continued to fall regularly. Ben Stewart and Ollie Millard looked well set until Stewart was run out in a mix-up for 19. Horley fell to just 107 all out, with Reid top-scoring with 22.

Horley bowled incredibly well initially, with Rob Woodward and Chris Cosham keeping it very tight and Cosham taking two wickets in a great nine-over spell for just 16 runs. Woodward was initially just too good to take the edge but in his second spell he picked up two wickets, going for only ten runs in his nine overs. The evergreen Trevor Stevens also bowled nine overs for just ten runs, taking three wickets and Horley were in the hunt, but a good rearguard from numbers seven and nine, Jared de Jesus and Arsalan Muhammad, was enough to get Staines over the line with three wickets and five overs to spare.

Horley 3rd XI had their lead at the top of Sussex Division 11 West (North) cut to 17 points as second-placed Crawley beat them by five wickets.

Horley were put in and Rob Rigby and Christian Kelly put together a good opening partnership of 42 before Rigby fell for 14.

After Dirk Douglas was caught out early, skipper Kieran Childs came to the crease looking to steady the innings. Kelly was caught soon after for 19, but Jack Poplett and Childs then put on a great partnership of 84 before Poplett was bowled for 25.

Childs continued his excellent innings but was finally caught out for 63, which came off 75 balls and included eight fours and one six.

The last six batters couldn’t get out of single figures and Horley were all out for 178 from 39.2 overs

Horley came out looking to attack and get early wickets and some tight bowling from Sam Terry and Max Heise resulted in each of them dismissing one opener, both caught by Jorell Wildman.

Childs and Wildman came into the attack looking to gain an advantage in the game and Wildman took two wickets with catches from Childs and Ryan Bunn.

Terry returned to take the wicket of Waqqas Malik for 47, but with some good batting from Crawley and decisions not going Horley’s way, they came up short and suffered their first loss of the season. Ibrahim Malik was 59 not out for Crawley.

A haul of four wickets for three runs from Jon Barnett, and a destructive 68 off 43 balls from George Hyde took defending champions Horley Development XI to a seven-wicket win over Leatherhead in the Surrey Trust League Tier 2 East.