2s in Run Fest at Ashtead

The 2nd’s travelled to neighbours Ashtead for the start of the second half of the season’s league games.
Galer won the toss and chose to bowl.

With Ben Donovan unavailable and Ollie Thilo injured (here in support and scoring) the new ball was given to U16 Will Hodgson who gave the Llamas the start they wanted when he got ex Llama Ahson Bukhari (2) playing on to leave the Ashtead Stags on 2-1in the 3rd over.
The Llamas stayed on top to keep Ashtead to 7 runs off the 1st 7 overs and the 2nd wicket fell when Will Hodgson bowled a slower ball yorker to bowl (yet another ex Llama) Kamran Mirza (4) with the score now 15-2 in the 9th over. In the 11th over Will Hodgson struck again to claim his 3rd wicket (3-14 off his 1st 6 overs) getting Tom Laudy (12) caught and bowled to peg Ashtead to 24-3 in the 11th over.

That was about the end of the Llamas being on top as the Ashtead Stags then took a firm hold on the game with Amith Sarma and U15 Ragu Aravinthan both playing their shots, often in the air but not to hand. From 24-3 in the 11th over they put on a 100 partnership by the 31st over and the Llamas didn’t breakthrough until Ollie Simms had Amith Sarma (70 off 77 balls) caught by Galer with the score now 152-4 in the 34th over.

Tayler Young joined Ragu Aravinthan and the pair continued to give all the Llama bowlers-apart from Briggsy- a hard time until Mobeen had Tayler Young (44 in 49 balls) lbw for the 5th Ashtead wicket to fall at 239-5 in the 48th over.
Next over Josh Pickering (2) charged past a wide delivery from Luke Haughton to be stumped by Fraser to peg Ashtead to 245-6 in the 49th over.

The game went away from the Llamas in the last few overs as Ashtead raced past 300 when U15 Ragu Aravinthan’s fine innings of 132 (off 124 balls) finally came to an end when he was run out by a direct throw from Mobeen.
From 152-4 after 34 overs Ashtead doubled their score with the 2nd 152 coming off just 21 overs to see their innings come to a close on 304-7 after the maximum 55 overs.

We won’t mention the fielding and apart from Will Hodgson’s 1st spell and Briggsy 0-32 off his 14 overs; we won’t mention the bowling either.

While no one expects a generous declaration; chasing 304 in a minimum of 45 overs looked a tall order albeit on a really good batting track; although the winning draw target at the outset (249) looked achievable.

If the Llamas were to get anywhere near the target they would need a fast start and they got exactly that as Bradley Scriven, on his way back to the 1st team after his injury, sent a message to the 1st team that he was ready to return. After 9 overs the Llamas were already on 64 when Smudger (17) was lbw to Nick Williams.

Sakes joined Scriv and Scriv carried on at an electric pace reaching his 50 in the 11th over.

Despite most of the fielders patrolling the boundary Scriv and Sakes took the Llamas to 102 in the 15th over when Scriv was caught behind off Tayler Young for 59 off 36 balls with 42 in boundaries, for the 2nd wicket to fall at 102-2. Scriv’s departure stalled the Llama run chase and Sakes (22) went soon after on 103-3, also caught behind off Tayler Young.

A rebuild was required and it came from Luke Haughton and skipper Galer. The pair put on 75 with near enough equal contributions until Jake Martin got one to come back and nick the bail to dismiss Lukey for 35. Score now 178-4 in the 35th over. Another wicket in the same over as Jake Martin bowled Fraser McGuinness (0). 178-5 was soon 179-6 as Ashtead captain John Vaughan-Davies trapped Jonny Flanders lbw for 1.
Amazingly at this stage the Stags went down to 10 men when one of their team left the field to go to a party !!

Cool heads were needed if the Llamas were to avoid defeat and they arrived when Toby Briggs joined Galer. The partnership put on 52 to take us past the 45th over but there was still 10 minutes match time remaining until the 6.50 finish time when Toby fell in the 46th over caught behind for 39 off 37 balls off the bowling of John Vaughan-Davies to leave the Llamas on 231-7.

The door to victory remained open to Ashtead & Will Hodgson (2) was next to go caught and bowled by Nick Williams and the Llamas were wobbling on 234-8 in the 47th over.

The winning draw target at the outset of 249 was reached with the last ball of the match that saw Galer reach his own 50 and the team’s 250 with a big 6 to gain an extra batting bonus point.

Having been behind for most of the game it was satisfying to achieve the same batting (5) and bowling (2) bonus points as Ashtead; but it was Ashtead who got the winning draw (4 points) as the winning draw target (based on run rate see below) increased as Ashtead bowled more than 45 overs; to leave us with 2 points for a losing draw.

Extract from Surrey Championship Constitution PC5- POINTS (a) TIME MATCHES NB: Scoring rate shall be determined by dividing the number of runs scored by the number of legitimate balls received

Highlights
Will Hodgson’s 1st bowling spell of 3-14 off 6 overs and Briggsy’s 39 runs and his miserly spell of 0-32 among the 304 runs, and Bradley Scriven’s quality 59 were eclipsed by a Captain’s innings from Galer of 57 not out steering the Llamas firstly to avoiding defeat and then to grab the extra batting bonus point with a 6 off the last ball.

Still in 3rd place on 152 points the Llamas fell further behind 2nd place Spencer (172 points) and top placed Wimbledon (196 points) who both won their fixtures.