Luke leads Horley to victory with first senior century

HORLEY seconds beat their Merstham counterparts by 149 runs in Surrey Division Eight East as Luke Smith hit his first century in adult league cricket.

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Horley elected to bat and lost two early wickets when Danish Mehmood and skipper Toby Davie were bowled by Liton Tarofdar in the third over.

So, 17-year-old Smith found himself at the crease early and made the most of the opportunity, batting for 172 minutes, facing 118 balls and hitting 13 fours on his way to 108.

His partner for the first 15 overs was Ryan Bunn, who made 63 before he was smartly caught and bowled by Imran Aslam as Horley went from 3-2 to to 98-3.

Ant Puttick and Smith put on another 49 for the fourth wicket before Puttick was bowled by Leo Hollidge for 27.

Dan Sired started his innings slowly, but his patience paid off as, along with Smith put on 102 for the fifth wicket in a little over an hour.

Smith reached his century in the 42nd over and was finally out off the fourth ball of the last over, bowled by Tarofdar. Horley finished on 251-5.

Merstham were in trouble early in their innings as Aidan Spalding bowled a wicket maiden in the second over, dismissing Ed Harvey lbw.

Puttick then executed a good stumping off Spalding at the start of the sixth to make the score 5-2.

Seven overs later, Alex Field had Ed Loader caught at slip by Davie, the captain then took a catch off Spalding (3-19) in the next over to dismiss Asa Curtis for 25 and in the 17th over Field (2-30) trapped Hollidge plum lbw for 20.