The Llama Women’s team sit on top of both the Surrey Women’s Cricket League Elite T20 and the Surrey Women’s Cricket League Premiership and dominate many of their games so a visit against the MCC would provide a real test and.....

Captain (& Surrey Captain) Amy Gordon won the toss and decided to bat in this 35 over match.

Opening partner Lucy Harris (8) was out first caught by Sinead Godden off the bowling of MCC debutant Bhoomika Bhat (Gloucestershire Women’s CC Player of the Year 2023) with the score 23-1.

Anna Lewis (another of our Surrey Women’s contingent) joined Amy and they both looked more than comfortable against the MCC attack with Amy hitting 3 consecutive 4’s from the bowling of Natasha Mcbean who bowls for Chesham Mens 4th team (3-0-19-0) and repeating the feat 3 overs later, this time off the bowling of Zanzibar who opens the bowling for Anstey CC Mens 2nd team in the Sussex Cricket League and figures of 7-0-44-0 didn’t do Zanzibar justice.

Amy and Anna took the Llamas past the hundred (103) in the 19th over when the Llamas lost their 2nd wicket when Anna (22 from 25 balls) was caught by MCC Captain Lucy Horitz off the bowling of Keely Juster (3-0-11-1) who plays her cricket for Actonians and is the Middlesex Womens Hall of Fame in the Middlesex room at MCC HQ at Lords.

Amy had reached 79 including 13 fours and was striking the ball as one expects of the Surrey Captain, when with a ton on the horizon Amy was cleaned bowled by Guildford CC’s Felicity Bennett (3-0-7-1) and the Llamas were 118-3 after 23 overs.

This brought about a mini collapse as in the very next over Esmae Vos (4) was caught by wicket keeper Emma Elson off the bowling of Francesca Sweet (5-1-21-1) and Reigate were 120-4 and this became 121-5 as Naomi Saunders (3) was run out by MCC Captain Lucy Horitz. Then 128-6 in the 29th over as Flo Johnson was caught by Ekil Latifi (from Afghanistan) from the bowling of Finty Trussler (6-0-21-1).

Bhoomaki Bhat (7-1-29-3) returned to the MCC attack and bowled Emily Taylor (9) for 144-7 and then had Lily Foster caught by a leaping one handed catch at slip from Keely Juster for 144-8 in the 32nd over. With only a few balls remaining Amelie Moore who had added a valuable 20 runs came down the wicket looking to hit a few more and was stumped by keeper Emma Elson off the bowling of Ekil Latifi (1-0-5-1) as Bella Barton (1no) and Charlotte Mehmood (3no) saw the Llamas to 160-9 at the end of their allotted 35 overs.

MCC opened the batting with Sinead Godden and Finty Trussler, who plays for St Cross Symondians where our own Steve Hirst now plays. The pair started slowly against the bowling of Anna Lewis (6-0-35-0) and Bella Barton whose figures of 4.4-1-14-0 demonstrated what a fine prospect she is; and by the 8th over MCC were 32 when Lily Foster enticed Finty Trussler (24) out of her ground to be stumped by Amy Gordon.

Lucy Harris’s bowling spell only conceding 4 runs off 2.2 overs was brought to a premature end when a strained hamstring prevented any more deliveries.

The Llama bowlers kept a lid on the run rate and the MCC were on 47 in the 15th over when the MCC lost their 2nd wicket as Amelie Moore (5-0-14-1) had Sinead Godden lbw for 11. This was followed next over when a full toss from Lily Foster (6-0-27-2) was hammered back by Ekil Latifi (6) for a caught and bowled.

MCC were still less than halfway at 53-3 in the 16th over and still needed 108 more runs to win from the remaining 19 overs.

Enter Francesca Sweet, who plays for Berkshire Women and Natasha Mcbean who has represented Buckinghamshire Women, began to press the accelerator. Francesca played with power and her Hockey background was evident in some of her shots many of which found their way to the boundary as she hit 1 six and 8 fours in her 66 not out.

Flo Johnson, Izzy Wall and Charlotte Mehmood all had a go at trying to dislodge the MCC batsmen but 70 runs from the 7 overs 18 to 25 saw the MCC towards their target which they reached in the 28th over at 161-3 with Natasha Mcbean finishing on 35no.

With many of the Llama girls already in the Surrey Womens representative age groups this was a further step in seeing what is hopefully in their cricketing futures.

A mention must be made of Peter the MCC scorer, who by the way is also scoring today’s Men’s game against the MCC, who travelled from Ireland to score the game; it certainly beats my journey up Nutley Lane!

Scorecard here.