Merstham’s first team suffered a tight defeat to local rivals Lingfield, at Quality Street on Saturday.

Nav Saeed’s men are still second in the Fuller’s Brewery Surrey County League Premier Division, but sit only four points above third-placed Lingfield.

The hosts were bowled out for 235 in 43 overs, giving the visitors 52 overs to win and they did so in 50.2.

The hosts chose to bat, Sunny Bowry (56) and Noman Javed (57) top scoring, with Damien Barnett bagging 41 at No 8.

Lingfield’s fifth bowler Tudor Carr eventually accounted for No 3 bat Bowry, one of two victims trapped leg-before, on his way to 6-61 from 14 overs.

In reply, four of Lingfield’s top five were dismissed cheaply, but opener Nicholas Rigg scored 57 and No 6 bat Mark Lloyd 45, before Ben Batty (40 not out) and Harvey Jarrett (38 not out) put Lingfield over the line with four wickets remaining.

Suliman Younis took 2-61 from his 14.2 overs.

“We just played badly,” reflected Saeed. “We batted well, but we only used 43 overs and little did we know those overs would cost us the game. If we’d batted 50 overs they would have scored 170 maximum [in the remaining 45].”

Saeed also had to field a man short when Barnett had to leave for an evening commitment at 5.30pm.

Sufficient bonus points earned in defeat kept the Magics second in the division, while the top team, Merrow, have a 36 point gap, with Merstham and three other teams sitting on 131 up to 137 points challenging for the second automatic promotion place. Saeed said: “We’re still there in the top two with eight games to go. There are plenty of points to play for.” Lowly placed Whiteley Village are the visitors on Saturday.

The second team are top of their Surrey Championships Division after a tight victory over Lingfield seconds.

Asked to bat, Lingfield scored 108 in 42.2 overs, Ameer Pasha returning best figures of 3-17 from 10 and Safyan Aslam also taking three wickets. Jason Kyte took two good high catches.

Low totals have often been knocked off by Richard Feist’s men with ease, but they were indebted to Manish Patel’s 39, Shakir Khan’s 13 and Rory Crouch’s 17 to steer them towards the total, losing nine wickets on their way to winning after 43 overs.

Tom Driscoll and Mark Henry both took three wickets for Lingfield.

The third team, asked to bat at Dorking, suffered a rare defeat. Ben Carter opened well with 35 but none of his team mates could get past 20 as they were dismissed for 126 from 42 overs, Alister Cox taking 4-20 for the hosts.

Dorking lost eight wickets in reaching the total, after 48.4 overs, Asim Ashraf taking 3-24 and John Coleman 2-13 with three maidens from nine overs.

Tight games and making a meal of chasing totals - from either side - seems to have been the order of the day.

The fourth team asked Dorking to bat and Omer Shuja (4-13 off six) used the juice in the air at Redhill Common’s The Ring to swing out the top order. Three men were bowled and one caught by captain Ian Lamont.

Dorking picked up a bit, Rhys Krechen scoring 43 before being bowled by spinner Dilhan Jayamanne after former skipper Tony Rickards had been bowled for 11.

The spinners were badly needed. New dad Will Prior put in an inspired spell of spin (2-17 off seven) including a caught and bowled to stem the middle order run flow before Marcus Kyte (2-21 off 7.2) returned to polish off the tail from the other end as Dorking were dismissed for 136 in 30.2 overs.

Gopa Nair also held one, while Jayamanne took a one-handed catch in the deep to finish the innings, a ball after Kashif Noon couldn’t hold a difficult chance and cut his hand in the process.

His time was about to come, however, as Merstham faced up to the challenge of a potential 60-over innings to win.

An early muddle between Noon and Jayamanne (7) resulted in the latter being run out, but Noon went on to notch 51. Prior struck a quick-fire 19 and teenager Joe Rees-Davies netted 30, running out his captain on the way when he took the skipper literally about working him the strike and went for a suicide single the very next next ball.

No matter. At that point, Merstham needed just 27 (equal to their unusually high count of extras conceded) to win. Despite losing enough wickets to require the skipper to consider a heart monitor, they managed to find the winning line, eight wickets down, after 36 overs.

At one point the Dorking chairman put himself tight to Kyte’s bat in a bid to catch him, only for the tailender to swipe a crucial three. Shuja found some form with 16 not out to finish the job, much to the delight of their international supporter Bharat Sahani, an interested spectator via mobile phone video link as he plots his Australian invasion from India.

Jayamanne’s hour was to come when, on Sunday - again opening the batting - he scored 39 as Merstham started well at Spencer but were all out for 137. Bowry scored 33 in an ultimate defeat.

The Development XI only just failed in their run chase at Trinity on Sunday, with Liam Powell taking 4-32 as Trinity were 218-7 from their 40 overs. Joe Rees-Davies also took two wickets, to add to his one on Saturday.

Merstham came extremely close to victory, scoring 216 all out in 38.5 overs, Ben Baker scoring 92 before being caught, and Arsalan Abass 48. Gus Locke (21) was the best of the top four. Rees-Davies was the last man to fall - run out for nought as the visitors lost with seven balls remaining.

Main picture by Harry David