Rain can't stop Llamas going 5 from 5

The Llamas maintained their unbeaten league record on Saturday by defeating bottom club
Guildford in a rain-affected match at Park Lane Road. Having won the toss and elected to
field, skipper Richie Oliver made it clear to his furry troops that it was not going to be an
easy day, with the weather set to play a part. Right on cue, the lads were pushing the covers
on after only 2.5 overs had been bowled.
A lengthy delay in a cricket match always poses the same old question: What to do? There
are a few regular activities The Llamas will engage in when rain closes in from the south-
west corner and forces them into the stables: Hoddo will sleep. Spearheading the attack is
tiring work, especially when the chap at the other end has 20mph on you. Shoare and
Beaven will retire to one corner of the pavilion and go about picking out 4 or 5 inevitable
losers across the afternoon’s racing cards. The skipper will work his way through the
kitchen’s teabag reserves whilst plotting a path to victory, and Phil Munday can be found
with head buried in the mountain of cakes and biscuits Hoddo kindly brings to keep us
adequately fuelled up. During this delay however, there was one llama who kept us all
entertained. As England continued their World Cup campaign against Bangladesh, Jason Roy
smashed 153 off 121 balls setting up an easy win for the hosts.
Lunch was taken early, and it was therefore a good 3 or 4 hours before play resumed. When
it did, Guildford progressed cautiously to 60-odd for 2 (both wickets to Hoddo) before Richie
turned to big Phil Munday to crack the game open. The now muffin-filled spinner did exactly
that with one of his classic long-hops being pulled powerfully into the deep, where Michael
Burgess welcomed the opportunity to make up for a shocking drop in the slips a few overs
prior. He duly obliged and The Llamas had their breakthrough. It was a couple of overs later
that Munday inflicted the killer blow to Guildford’s batting effort with a triple-wicket
maiden. Spinning a couple past the outside edge before sliding one onto the pads or stumps
is a standard formula for Munday, and he executed that to perfection on a sticky but
responsive pitch. Two in two balls gave Munday the chance for a hat-trick, and when the
batsman jabbed forward at a wrong’un, leaving the ball hanging in the air for what seemed
like forever, Munday could only muster a dive that looked more like a piano being dropped
from a 3 rd story window (See image on club Instagram). Everyone on the field felt the ground
shake as he landed. The batsman, being the closest to the epicentre of “earthquake
Munday”, felt the full force, and he can be forgiven for being dismissed next ball,
presumably still dazed by the tectonic shift that occurred the ball before. From there on in,
the Guildford lower order scrapped their way to 108ao from 41.5 overs. Safe to say The
Llamas retuned to the changing rooms more confident about chasing the total set than they
were about the foundations of the pavilion after the “Mothquake”.
Not long into the run-chase, the heavens well and truly opened. Another lengthy delay saw
the end of Hoddo’s tin of muffins and as time ticked on, there was a chance that the rain
could scupper The Llamas’ 100% record. However, it was at this time that the President

(Packers, not the visiting Donald or his doppelganger Dickie Stevens) stepped in to get
things moving himself. A couple of handfuls of sawdust later and the run-ups at the pavilion
end were deemed playable. The delay had however taken time out of the game, and now
The Llamas required about 100 runs off 20 odd overs with 9 wickets in hand. The nature of
the game meant there were no fielding restrictions for Guildford, but they played to win
and kept a fairly aggressive in-out field. In the end, a couple of decent partnerships between
Oliver(38)/Delmont(15) and Burgess(30)/Lehmann(12*) got The Llamas home fairly
comfortably with 9 balls to spare.
Next week The Llamas travel to Wimbledon, and with the famous tennis tournament just
around the corner, organisers, fans and competitors alike will be hoping Phil Munday can
stay on his feet, instead of deciding to test the structural soundness of centre court.