Good Horley season ends on a losing note

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Horley 1st XI didn’t manage to finish their Surrey Division 4 East season on a high, as they slipped to a four-wicket defeat at Streatham & Marlborough.

They finished third in the table, 60 points behind champions Reigate Priory 2nd XI and 29 behind the other promoted side, Croydon.

For this last game, Horley skipper Regan Derham was forced into a few changes which gave Ryan Smith, Ollie Holman and Ryan Bunn a chance to impress heading into next season.

Horley were asked to bat first. With the game effectively being a dead rubber, with neither team able to move up in the table, Derham elected for a new-look opening partnership in the form of Bunn and Aidan Spalding, with the latter having shown his batting credentials in Horley’s cricket week.

They got Horley off to a good start, scoring at six an over before the first wicket fell in the sixth over. Obaid Afkar (4-47), who had been regularly moving the ball off the pitch, found a way through Bunn to clean bowl him. Four balls later, Afkar delivered almost a carbon copy to get rid of Spalding, with Horley now 39-2.

Henrick Cook and Luke Smith were looking comfortable at the crease, however Afkar was still asking plenty of questions and Horley lost another couple of quick wickets in the 10th and 11th overs. Firstly, Afkar claimed his third bowled wicket of the day, this time sending Luke Smith back to the pavilion. Cook then fell to Fabian Whitelock, with his eyes lighting up to a short, wide delivery that he slapped to Christopher Hobbis at mid-off.

Afkar continued to pile the pressure on and found his fourth victim, this time when Ben Davies top edged a ball which flew down to third man where Whitelock held on to reduce Horley to 83-5.

Anthony Puttick (36) and skipper Derham (33) now had the job of rebuilding to get the visitors up to a defendable total on a pitch that was definitely helping the bowlers out. The pair put on 56 with a mixture of aggression and good shot selection until Puttick fell in the 26th over, playing on as he tried to guide Lloyd Edwards down to third man. Three overs later Horley were 143-7 as Derham couldn’t keep out left-arm spinner Chris Leech.

Horley felt like they were now in free-fall as Adam Stephenson fell, caught by Dan Ellis in George Aldrige’s first over to add insult to injury.

Tom Jowett (32) and Ryan Smith (24) now had the best part of 20 overs to give their side some momentum for the second innings. With nothing to lose, the teenage pair played their shots, picking up 10 boundaries between them as they pushed Horley past the 200 mark and put on the second 50 partnership of the innings. However, the returning Whitelock (2-53) accounted for Ryan Smth in the 39th and Jowett then fell off first ball of the 40th to Leech (2-24), leaving Horley 204 all out, with 10 overs unused.

Streatham got off to a similar start to Horley, primarily thanks to Ellis (34), who was taking advantage of anything loose from Davies and Ryan Smith. With Davies struggling with his run up due to drainage tracks in the outfield, Derham threw the ball to Holman in hope of getting a breakthrough. The seamer didn’t disappoint, as he trapped Ellis lbw in his first over.

Dominic Friel and Streatham captain Matt Pickles (41) consolidated, helped by some wayward bowling, as the extras started to stack up. The pair put on 64 before Jowett (3-29) got in on the action. With the first ball of the 20th, Friel attempted to drive him through the cover region, only to be caught by Puttick, with a spectacular low diving catch to his left.

Jowett was trying his best to turn the tide of this game and picked up Leech caught and bowled with the last ball of the 20th, to make the score 109-3. He was working in tandem with Stephenson (1-25), slowly bringing down Streatham’s run rate. Pickles was closing in on his 50, but Jowett, having gone for 10 off the first two balls of the 26th, kept his composure and castled the Streatham skipper.

This led to a purple patch for Horley, with Stephenson trapping Hobbis lbw in the 27th and skipper Derham bowling his first league overs of the season and having Lloyd Edwards caught at mid-on by Bunn. Streatham were suddenly 149-6 and Horley tails were well and truly up.

Tom O’Mahoney (19 not out) and Alex Waring (29 not out) had the job of weathering the storm and bided their time, picking up runs where they could as their side edged closer to the 205 target. Horley unfortunately were still leaking extras which released all the pressure they had built up and with the best part of 13 overs to spare, Waring hit the winning runs to condemn Horley to their seventh defeat this season.

A special mention must go to Chris Jowett. With Cook getting hit on the side of the head whilst fielding and having to sit out 20 overs, Chris stepped up to make sure Horley weren’t a man short.

Horley ended up one place better than last season’s fourth in the division and will hope to gain promotion in 2027.

They had to finish this season without overseas player CP Singh, who had already flown home to India. He topped the Division 4 East run-scoring chart by a margin of 146 runs and was seventh in the whole Surrey Championship, 100 behind the top scorer, having played two fewer matches.

He scored a total of 1091 runs for Horley in all competitions in 2026, averaging 83.92, with six 50s and four 100s.

Horley 2nd XI’s title-winning season in Division 8 East finished with a bit of a whimper as they lost by seven wickets to runners-up Kenley. However, with both first and second place in the table already set in stone, there will undoubtedly be more fire in Horley’s bellies when the two meet in Division 7 next season.

Horley elected to bat and sent out a new-look opening partnership of Dan Farmer – who averages 46 in third team league – and Will Hofmann, who is usually well down the order.

Shanmugam Murugan got the ball swinging in the first over and Farmer edged one to slip, and three overs later Toby Davie stepped down the wicket and was bowled by Daniel Bradshaw and Horley were 10-2.

Hofmann and Matt Reid put on 47 before Reid was caught and bowled by Manoharan Masilamani, having had a life against the same bowler in the 15th over when he edged a ball back past his feet, it gently nudged the stumps but didn’t dislodge the bails.

Richard Waddington struck three nice fours before toe-ending an Arun Prabhakar full toss straight to Sujeet Sanzgiri at square leg in the 24th over.

That heralded a spectacular collapse as Prabhakar (4-33) and the speedy Krithick Manoharan (2-9) took six wickets in five overs and Horley slumped from 72-4 to 80-9. Shrey Vaid was bowled first ball, Guy Derham was caught in the 26th, Hofmann’s 77-ball innings ended on 27 when he played on off Manoharan, skipper Chris Webber was bowled two balls later and Jack James was bowled in the 28th over.

A somewhat stunned Rob Woodward and Alex Field found themselves out in the middle and after they steadied the ship with 11 dot balls, Woodward hit Prabhakar for a straight six to get Horley moving again. He raced to 15 before Field took 13 off the 32nd over and another four next ball, and from there Woodward had the lion’s share of the strike and found the boundary three more times.

They brought up their 50 partnership in the 36th over just before Woodward was caught by Krithick Manoharan off Bradshaw for 32 (33 balls, four fours, two sixes) leaving Field on 17 not out (16 balls, four fours).

With Horley all out for 132 in 35.3 overs, Kenley’s reply was much less dramatic. Webber (1-15) bowled Thomas Sullivan-Ferrarin in the fourth over and Hofmann (2-29) picked up two wickets, having Praveenkumar Sureshbabu caught at leg slip by Reid when he came on in the 12th over, then dismissing Karthik Prasanna Gunasekaran caught and bowled in the 16th.

However, opener Krithick Manoharan was still in place and he scored 68 from 86 balls (11 fours) to take Kenley over the line after 27 overs, with Barry Dean 32 not out.

Shortly before that, Davie had come on to bowl only his second over of the season and produced a maiden. However, Davie’s skills with the bat have been much more important to Horley in this championship-winning season as he is Division 8 East’s top scorer of 2026 with a total of 609 runs at an average of 50.75.

Horley Hornets lost their Surrey Slam Women’s Shield semi-final by eight wickets to a strong Reigate Priory side.

The Hornets were put in and were bowled out for 82 in 18.2 overs. Catherine Andrews top scored with a run-a-ball 40. She also took one of the wickets in the reply, bowling Emily Taylor, while Ella Gouldsborough had Leah Dexter caught by Megan Griffiths.

Amelia Lightbody (28 not out) and Georgina Fairclough (4 not out) saw Priory home with 3.1 overs to spare.