U19 and RETIRED ????

Having won their opening fixture against Banstead, the U19 Reigate Rapids visited Sutton’s Cheam Road ground to play the Sutton Scorchers U19’s who were also undefeated having already won both of their fixtures in the ECB’s U19 Club T20 competition (Surrey Vitality U19 T20 Tier 1 Group 3 match).

Sutton included Connor Griffin, Sam Blake and Aneesh Jhalla from last weekend’s 1st team and 6 of their side played in last weekend’s 2nd team so the Rapids were to expect a tough game but were not without confidence having won their own opening fixture against Banstead in just over 10 overs.

Jonny Flanders won the toss and chose to bat on what looked an excellent batting wicket and he opened the batting alongside Will Brewis. After a wide and a single to Jonny to start proceedings Will was trapped LBW 1st ball to Sam Blake.

11 runs off the 2nd over including 2 fours from Will Dahl and another 11runs off the next over from George Gardner, this time including a 4 to Jonny Flanders.

Sutton started to take some control at this stage and with the score on 32 in the 5th over Jonny was bowled by George Gardner for 12. Sutton struck again in the 8th over to make it 44-3 when Will Dahl was bowled by Sutton captain & 1st teamer Connor Griffin for a quick-fire 20 from 24 balls.

In the 8th over Seth McDowall join Will Timmons who patiently got themselves in, but at 68 for 3 after 13 overs acceleration was called for and it duly arrived as 11 runs came from the 14th over before the pair then took 20 runs off George Gardiner in the 16th over including 3 cracking fours from Will Timmons and then 24 runs came off the 17th over with Seth McDowall being brutal to Sam Blake’s bowling with 2 sixes and a 4. Will and Seth still weren’t finished and proceeded to take 10 more runs off the 18th over, bowled by Connor Griffin, and again including a huge 6 to take the Llamas to 148 for 3 after 19 overs.

The last over saw Will Timmons reach his 50 (from 41 balls) and having to retire, followed 2 balls later by Seth McDowall reaching his 50 (from 39 balls) who also had to retire. Both received generous applause from the large home crowd bolstered by many Llama supporters. The pair had been together from the 8th over (44-3) and departed in the 20th over with the score on 155.

Connor Griffin then took Dan Grant’s wicket off the last ball to finish his 3 overs with 2-20 and the Llamas finished on 155 for 4 with Sutton’s 1st team spinner Aneesh Jhalla being the pick of the Sutton bowlers with 0-17 from his 4 overs; but the quality of this batting wicket meant every sympathy should be offered to the bowlers as the Priory bowlers were soon to find out.

Ollie Thilo fresh from the 1st team opened the bowling and perhaps showed why Reigate are called the Rapids with wicket keeper Will Dahl standing a full pitch distance being the stumps. More fire power from the Llamas with Ed Russ sharing the new ball; although a 4 and a 6 to Joe Lunn was an early reminder that the run chase was on with 15 coming from the 2nd over.

Ollie T had other ideas and the 1st ball of his 2nd over saw Will Dahl take a catch behind to dismiss Joe Lunn for 15 (off just 10 balls) and see the score at 20-1. Another wicket on the same score, in the same over, saw Aarav Rajnikanth run out for 3 by an excellent piece of fielding from Dan Grant.

Will Brewis replaced Ed Russ and Tom Wilbraham replaced Ollie Thilo and Sutton batsmen Jay Evemy and George Gardner began to take charge with 11 runs coming from Tom’s 2nd over before their progress was halted by Will Brewis (4 overs 1-21) who found the edge to dismiss Jay Evemy for 12 for Will Dahl to take a fine catch standing up at the stumps. The score was now 52-3 in the 8th over.

20 runs came from Jonny Flanders opening over including 2 sixes and a 4 to Sutton captain Connor Griffin. Connor in tandem with George Gardner put on a 50 partnership including 15 runs from Jacob McLoughlin’s 1st over where Connor helped himself to a 6 and a 4.
The partnership was broken in the 12 over by the returning Ed Russ who had Connor Griffin given out LBW by Sutton Umpire Sam Griffin with the score on 104-4 in the 13th over (Reigate had scored 68 by the 13th over for comparison). Connor had entertained the large crowd with a fabulous 39 off just 19 balls and fully deserved the applause from the gallery.

A couple of overs with just 6 runs each before Jacob McLoughlin took charge in the 16th over firstly clean bowling Sam Blake for 9 (119-5) and then 2 balls later having George Gardner (26) caught in the deep with a fine diving catch by Ollie Thilo to see the Scorchers at 120-6. Ed Russ’s 4th over (the 17th) went for just 4 runs to finish his spell of 4 overs 1-29 which was a good comeback having conceded 15 off his first over.
Jacob’s turn again and just as 2 wickets came off his previous over, 2 more were to fall in this (18th) over as he got Aiden Sheridan (4) LBW and then had Callum Noonan (4) well caught by Ed Russ to finish his spell of 4 overs with 4-29, with 15 of these coming from his 1st over. So 126-7 became 130-8.

With 2 overs left Sutton were on 132 needing 24 to win from 2 overs. 10 of these came from the 19th over bowled by Ollie Thilo who finished with 1 for 16 from 4 overs of (very) fast bowling including a (rare in T20’s) maiden. Ollie even clipped the stumps which lit up but as the bails were not dislodged Aneesh Jhalla was reprieved.

This left skipper Jonny Flanders to bowl the last over and defend the 13 needed for a tie. With free hits for front foot no balls, Jonny very carefully placed his front foot behind the line and had George Duckworth (4) caught by Will Brewis off the 1st ball of the over to peg Sutton at 142-9. Jonny (2-20 off 1.4 overs) then finished the innings (142 all out) when he bowled Aneesh Jhalla (6) with just 2 balls remaining.

This was an excellent advert for the quality of cricketers in both Clubs and both Sutton and Reigate’s future is in good hands with these U19’s. I don’t envy the Llama selectors as they juggle with trying to get as many of these U19’s games in the senior teams.

The teams meet again at Park Lane on Monday evening (10th August) and if it’s half as good as this game it will be worth a watch.