TUNE IN TO THAMES MATCH SPECIAL

After 7 weeks of limited over games with the free hits, power plays and leg side wides etc., Saturday was the start of 9 weeks of timed cricket games (with declarations allowed and bowlers able to bowl 14 overs each and teams batting first able to bat for 55 overs) with a visit to league leaders East Molesey at their ground alongside the Thames near Hampton Court with Harry McInley leading the team in Smudger’s absence.
East Molesey won the toss and batted and had scored 13 boundaries in the 1st 12 overs in reaching 70-0; though some of these boundaries were off the edge evading fielders with the bowlers not getting fair value for finding the edges.
As Harry tried different bowlers, with spells from Toby Briggs (0-38 from 7), George Elliston (0-19 from 4), Will Brewis ((0-18 from 4) and Connor Newbold (0-36 from 6) the Moles Openers Kieran Burge and youngster Tiam Afshar continued at about 5 runs an over with their 100 partnership coming in the 23rd over and Tiam being 1st to his 50 in the 26th over followed shortly afterwards by his captain Kieran Burge reaching his 50 in the 27th over as they reached their 150 partnership after 30 overs.
Harry brought Jacob McLoughlin into the attack and Jacob broke the opening partnership getting fellow youngster Tiam Afshar (63) lbw. Jacob got the next wicket to fall as James Southgate (6) looped a catch to gulley where Connor Newbold took the catch for 166-2 in the 36th over and more success for Jake (7-1-32-3) as he then bowled East Molesey captain Kieran Burge for 89 and East Molesey were 185-3 in the 40th over as the East Molesey run rate was being slowed by Jacob and an accurate spell from Harry (14-1-39-0) to pull back the Moles from 150-0 after 30 overs to 200-3 after 44 overs.
However with James Smith (57 n.o.) and Paul Lawford at the crease the Moles pushed the accelerator and reached 244 by the 49th over when Henry Tye’s off spin (4-0-26-1) dismissed Paul Lawford (28) as Connor Newbold took his 2nd catch of the innings, this time at deep long on. Toby returned for his 2nd spell and in the 50th over got the wicket (8-0-50-1) of Tomlinson Max (0) caught by Advaith Bali as the Moles declared their innings after 50 of the 55 overs on 261-5.
The Llama reply didn’t start well with David Gent (0) caught at 1st slip off Andrew Westphal’s 1st over and it didn’t get any better from Andrew Westphal’s 2nd over as Tomlinson Max diving catch at gulley saw the end of Ashwin Bhat (1) and the Llamas were 3-2 after 3 overs.
Henry Tye looked in fine form as he struck 5 fours; mostly straight drives, in his 24 before Henry became Andrew Westphal’s 3rd victim as the ball deflected off Henry’s arm onto the stumps and the Llamas were struggling at 36-3 in the 11th over.
Jordan Bunyan and Advaith Bali then dug in & Jordan continued his midweek form (32 n.o.) reaching 36 before Jack Miller got through his defence for 82-4 in the 23rd over. Captain Harry McInley hit 2 sixes, one of which disappeared into the nearby Thames, in his run a ball 20 before he was caught at deep long on off Jack Miller (14-3-45-2) and at 111-6 in the 29th over with the winning target 150 runs away, the Llamas were now intent on not losing but things didn’t look any better as Jacob McLoughlin (8) was bowled by James Southgate (9-1-28-1) for 126-6 in the 34th over.
With a minimum of 16 overs left (or play until 6.50pm if the minimum of 50 overs were reached before the finish time) George Elliston joined Advaith Bali as the shutters went up. Advaith; playing with a maturity not expected from a 14 year old, hit 6 fours in reaching 43 before he was 7th out at 148-7 in the 43rd over bowled by Andrew Westphal. In the same over Will Brewis (0) played no shot and became another Andrew Westphal victim for 148-8.
Some stout defending from George Elliston and Toby Briggs saw the Llamas through the next 6 overs before with the score on 168 Toby (4) became the 9th wicket to fall when he was out lbw to Andrew Westphal (14-4-35-6). Andrew Westphal is an International cricketer who plays for Mexico (no I had no idea they played cricket either) but closer to home Andrew had played all his 2020 and 2021 cricket in the East Molesey 1st team and at 2nd team level his quality was shining through.
Connor Newbold (0 n.o.) joined George Elliston as George (25 n.o. with 4 fours) faced the last over. George is made of stern stuff and was not to be intimidated and with all the opposition players crowded around his bat (the match was live streamed and you can watch the action on East Molesey’s You-tube channel where fast forwarding to 7 hours you can see all 11 players around his bat) George saw out the final over to see the Llamas gain a draw at 172-9 after 50 overs.
Although the Llamas were a long way short of their target this was nonetheless a battling performance in not losing and included some creditable individual performances particularly from Advaith Bali (U14) top scoring with 43 and Jacob McLoughlin’s fine spell of bowling (3-32) alongside Harry’s 20 runs and 0-39 from his 14 overs.
Given the You-tube filming of the match this was far from a horror show but more of a drama and proves it doesn’t have to be a limited over game to produce a nail biting finish as the Llamas came away from a trip (at a very noisy venue by the way) with a 10 point deficit from the draw rather than what would have been a 20 point deficit from a defeat.