Match & Catch of the Day ?

Competing against the EUFA Women’s Euros at Wembley and the England v South Africa Cricket T20, the Llamas did their best to provide their own Match of the Day.

Sunbury chose to bat and apart from Subhan Ramzan; Sunbury’s U17 1st teamer who scored a century against Esher 1st team a couple of weeks ago, the other top and middle order batsmen made little progress against the Llama bowling attack.

The 1st two wickets fell in the 3rd over with the score on 11 when Will Brewis (5-1-19-2) had U15 Sarthak Thakur (5) caught behind by Tom James and then had Sunbury Captain (& Sunbury 2’s player) Aaryan Pillai attempting a hook only to succeed in given a return catch to Will.
U15 Aadiya Jhamb stuck around to give support to Subhan Ramzan and the pair took the score onto 81 when in the 13th over Alvin Richard Sathya had Aadiya (15) out lbw.

Subhan Ramzan (who was a real chatterbox but a quality batsman nonetheless) began attempting; unsuccessfully for the most part, some extravagant shots and having just past his 50 he then hit the self destruct button attempting to run a suicidal 4th run only to be run out to George McLoughlin’s throw and the Llamas then took a grip on the game as Sunbury were 4 down for 106 in the 18th over.

With Tommy Bates enticing batsmen to hit him for six, Joseph Kerridge (16) tried just that only to fall to a back peddling, diving, low, one handed catch from Captain Jacob McLoughlin; which just about (but only just about) bettered Seth McDowall’s catch off Tommy’s bowling for the 2nd team the previous day. 120-5 at drinks in the 20th over.

In the next over after drinks, it was 125-6 as Jacob McLoughlin, bowling spin in tandem with Tommy Bates, then dismissed U15 Nate Bhardwa (8) when Nate was caught by Alvin at short mid on. Then the 3rd wicket fell in successive overs as it became 130-7 as Tommy Bates (8-0-37-2) got his 2nd wicket bowling Lucas Brierley (5).

With the Llamas hoping to close the innings, the Sunbury Chieftains had other ideas as U19 Ben Maskery and U16 2nd teamer Tom Burgess took the score onto 166 when in the 30th over the 8th wicket fell as Tom Burgess (25) got a fine edge to a delivery from TJ Cossey (3-0-18-1). Jacob McLoughlin (6-0-21-2) then got his 2nd wicket bowling Ben Maskery (8) as Sunbury were now 183-9 in the 34th over.

It was left to Alvin to wrap up the innings as Sunbury were all out for 185 half way through the 35th over when he bowled U18 Azim Rehman (14) with a straight delivery; which were few and far between as Alvin’s figures of 7.3-0-41-2 were rather spoilt by 14 wides.
With the “Surplus to Supper” organisation, who distribute food to those in need, operating at Sunbury Cricket Club; the teas were plentiful and with the Llama 2nd XI due to play at Sunbury next weekend they will not go hungry.

Seth McDowall and Sam Clark opened the Llama reply and had raced along to 46 in the 6th over when Seth (27 from 18 balls with 3 fours and a six) hit a ball from Ben Maskery (4-0-23-1) high into the air which keeper Lucas Brierley duly caught.

That was to be the only wicket to fall as Will Jones joined Sam Clark. Will received a fair amount of chirp when he arrived at the wicket; no doubt the result of dishing it out (he wasn’t the only one) during the Sunbury innings and hopefully the message gets home that when you dish out the verbals, it normally comes back in spades.

However Will & Sam didn’t let it disturb their concentration as they both hit plenty of boundaries (Will 12 fours & Sam 10 fours and a six) and they both passed their individual 50’s as their 100 partnership came up in the 25th over. Sam and Will were a contrasting pair as solid, dependable, unflappable Sam followed up his 33 for the Rapids on Friday and his 51 for the 4th XI yesterday, with 73no today. Will on the other hand is full of nervous energy while he bats but it seems to work as his 78 no from79 balls would prove. Will & Sam would finish with an unbroken partnership of 143 as Sam hit the winning boundary from the last ball of the 31st over to complete a comprehension win for The Llamas.

The 16 points puts the Llamas in 2nd place on 84 points just 4 points behind Wimbledon with top placed Dulwich on 99 points having finished their fixtures, so with 2 matches to play in the Surrey Trust League Tier 1 East the Llamas are well placed to occupy one of the two places to go through to the semi finals on the 21st August to meet either of the top two in Tier 1 West; likely to be East Molesey and Esher.