Match report Llama 2nd X1 v Guildford 2nd X1

Following Friday evening’s monsoon the Llamas had to wait for Saturday’s gale force winds to dry out the square. The game finally got underway at 2pm with 34 overs a-side.

Guildford won the toss and chose to bowl.

Ashwin Bhat and Jordan Bunyan both settled confidently into their innings with some forceful drives; matching each other run for run against the Guildford opening bowlers U17 Archie Freeth (4-0-19-0) & Ben Shaw (3-0-16-0). They progressed the score to 55 in the 14th over before the 1st wicket fell when Jordan (25) got a nick to the keeper Ross Richardson making his 1st appearance for Guildford 2nd’s having spent the whole season in the Guildford 1st team.

Hutch started with a 4 but was out next over to leave the Llamas 60-2 in the 15th over when he was stumped off a leg side bowl (no longer interpreted as an automatic wide in tier 3 limited over games-although you can of course be stumped off a wide anyway)
Captain Henry Tye joined Ashwin and with the score on 83 in the 22nd over Ashwin was out for 33 caught at mid off, to be Guildford’s captain Chris Coombs’ 1st wicket.

With only a dozen overs left the Llamas needed to up the run rate if they were going to post a defendable total but in their attempt to do so they lost Will Irving (7) caught at deep mid cow for Chris Coombs’ 2nd wicket with the score now 97-4 in the 26th over and then Henry (26) was caught at deep square leg, again off the bowling of Chris Coombs with the score now 105-5 in the 28th over.

Next over (29th) saw Jonny Flanders (2) bowled off his pad by Adam Appleton (7-0-25-1) to have the Llamas in trouble at 108-6 and wickets continued to fall as Will Hodgson (4) was caught to be Chris Coombs’ 4th wicket (7-0-26-4) and then Toby Briggs (1) played on to be bowled by U18 Paul Stephens as the score went from 115-7 to 116-8 in the 30th over.

The Llamas were in danger of not batting out our allotted 34 overs when George Elliston (7) was bowled by Paul Stephens to be 9th out at 121-9 in the 31st over.

A brief and welcome addition to the score came from Mobeen Tahir (11 no) before Paul Stephens (5.5-0-26-4) wrapped up the Llama innings by bowling Ollie Simms (0) to finish the innings at 132 all out with 7 balls of the allotted 34 overs left.

Even given the difficult windy conditions where the bails were constantly blown off the stumps and a surface where the ball wasn’t coming on; the Llamas score didn’t look enough. However Toby Briggs (6-1-27-1) gave the Llamas a perfect start when he had Jonathan Hedges (0) lbw 2nd ball of the Guildford innings.

U15 Benjamin Garrett was joined by Guildford 1st teamer Ross Richardson and they took control taking Guildford to 43-1 after 10 overs---the Llamas were 42-0 after 10 overs---before Ross was caught and bowled by Henry (7-0-24-1) for 42 of the 66-2 after 14 overs.
By the 21st over Guildford were 83-3 when Henry caught U17 Tom Geffen (6) off Mobeen’s bowling (7-1-22-1)---at the same stage the Llamas were also 83-3.

With 13 overs left and 7 wickets in hand Guildford only needed 50 to win and U15 opener Benjamin Garrett and Aqueel Iqbal (25 no) survived a couple of difficult chances to Hutch and Henry before taking Guildford nearer to their target.

U15 Benjamin Garrett had patiently moved to 48 from 97 deliveries when in the 31st over with 50 in his sights, he lost patience and holed out to Henry at mid-on to give Ollie Simms a deserved wicket from his 7 overs (1-22). Aqueel Iqbal then hit the winning runs to see relegation threatened Guildford to 134-4 with 10 balls left.

Unfortunately the Llamas had their own version of a TV programme and came out of the match “Pointless”. Perhaps Guildford were more motivated than the mid table Llamas and although we bowled well enough we just didn’t put enough runs on the board.