Seth Shines to put Sunbury in the Shade

Having climbed off the bottom of the table to 2nd from bottom with our 1st win of the league season last weekend; today saw the Llamas host 2nd to top Sunbury in the 1st of the season’s timed matches.

Three changes from last week with Tommy Bates (93 for the 3’s last weekend) coming in for Matt Crighton, Ollie Simms replacing Connor Newbold (playing for the 1’s) and Will Hodgson replacing Steve Cross.
After the morning’s rain it was thanks to Brickers that the game started with just a minor 5 minute delay as Harry McInley, having won the toss, put Sunbury into bat with their hard hitting openers Sean Ventham and Jack Greaves up against Toby Briggs and Will Hodgson.
Will has been playing in the 1’s but his limited bowling opportunities saw him eager to make the most of a longer bowling spell and it was Will’s 1st ball that hit the off stump to bowl Jack Greaves (1). Toby then had Sean Ventham (5) caught by Ant Ireland at mid-off and 2-1 became 11-2 after 3 overs. A brief recovery from Sunbury with Ed Hughes and Imran Rashid making slow progress against Toby and Will before Will took his 2nd wicket having Imran Rashid (18) caught by the safe hands of Ant Ireland for 38-3 in the 14th over.
Will & Toby still had the brakes on the Sunbury run rate, aided by some excellent fielding with little getting past Oli Simms patrolling the covers. Toby found his way past Ed Hughes’ defence to bowl Ed for 28 and leave Sunbury 58-4 in the 23rd over. The timed matches allow the bowlers a maximum of 14 overs and Toby’s figures of 13-2-33-2 was just reward for often bowling into a strong wind.
Toby Briggs and Will Hodgson were replaced by Alvin Richard Sathya (U16) and Seth McDowall (U17) and Seth’s 1st over was a wicket maiden as he bowled Navvya Sharma (4). Alvin’s turn next over as he bowled Dev Popley (16) and 74-5 became 78-6 after 28 overs.
Sunbury captain Darren London joined Jonathan Charles with the aim of batting to 55 overs and posting a score to defend over 45 overs. But it wasn’t to be as Darren (Sunbury wicket keeper/captain) having just mentioned how impressed he was with Fraser’s keeping was to see this at first-hand as Darren (12) was out stumped by Fraser to a legside delivery from Seth McDowell and Sunbury were 100-7. Next ball Seth had Sunbury veteran Justin Granger lbw for a duck and 100-8 for a double wicket maiden. Alvin’s turn next and Sunbury found themselves 105-9 as Alvin bowled Tom Burgess (4). Seth was to finish his (age restricted) 7 over spell with figures of 7-4-11-3 and Alvin was to finish his (age restricted) 7 over spell with 7-0-29-2.
It wasn’t until the 41st over that a spin bowler was used as captain Harry McInley brought himself on but he only had the opportunity to bowl 1 over before a returning Will Hodgson got the final wicket (13.3-3-36-3) bowling Saran Kalsi (4) and Sunbury were all out for 117 in the 42nd over with 6 of the wickets being bowled and 1 lbw highlighting the accuracy of the bowlers with just enough in the wicket that batsmen never looked settled.
With 58 overs available the Llamas opened the batting with U17 Seth McDowall and U16 Tommy Bates. It was to prove to be Seth’s day as he followed up his fine bowling spell with a mature batting display that was to impress his teammates and the opposition.
Saran Kalsi (4-0-16-0), Justin Granger (4-1-18-0), Tom Burgess (3-0-20-0) and Jack Greaves (4-0-26-0) all tried but none of the Sunbury bowlers looked like disturbing Seth and Tommy. Seth took most of the strike, sometimes a run off the last ball and sometimes being fed the strike by Tommy; and from a gradual start Seth began to accelerate as the pair took 9 runs from over 9, 10 runs from over 13, 9 more from over 15 before Seth hit 15 (with 2 fours and a 6) from over 16 and treating it like a T20 rather than 58 available overs, the pair hit 19 (with 2 more 6’s from Seth) from over 18 before taking the Llamas to a 10 wicket win in the 19th over with Tommy 20 no and Seth 89 no (from 78 balls with 66 in boundaries).
While it was the Jim Harmer production line of youngsters who played the major roles with 8 of the 10 wickets and all of the runs (who said “you can’t win anything with kids”), the supporting cast also played their part in a win that takes the Llamas to 3rd from bottom just 5 points out of the relegation places with 48 points in a tight division where no team is undefeated and with the league leaders (Spencer) on 77 points and next week’s opponents Wimbledon 2nd on 74 points.
On a day where 1st team Captain RKO’s 167 no will obviously take the headlines I’m sure he won’t mind sharing some of the spotlight with Seth.