Tom Veillard

A famous five wickets in five balls for Veillard        by Matt Lihou                                  Guernsey Press 12th June 2015

It worked for Tom Veillard’s favour spectacularly when the St Saviour’s captain is thought to have made local sporting history by taking five wickets in five balls. The son of former Guernsey skipper Richard achieved the feat in Evening League Division Two against Griffins B at Port Soif. Interestingly he also performed a hat-trick on the same ground in an under-13 match against Jersey.

Five wickets in five balls has cemented Tom Veillard in local cricketing history, after the St Saviour’s teenager bowled an incredible winning over on Wednesday. In his side’s Evening League Division Two clash with Griffins B, the 18-year-old came on to bowl his third over with the opposition needing 43 runs from the final four overs, with five wickets in hand. But after Griffins captain Wayne Martel took a single from the first ball, it was St Saviour’s skipper Veillard who took centre stage with a match-winning spell at Port Soif. Theo Lepp was the first to go, trapped lbw, before Paul Carrick was clean bowled and then lan Taylor became the hat-trick victim when he was trapped in front of his stumps. With the game now all but won, Veillard rearranged the stumps of both Nic Buckle and then Andy Costello to make it five in five, which is believed to be the first time it has ever happened in Guernsey cricket.

‘If you miss, I hit’

Veillard finished with figures of six for 11 from his three overs, having earlier removed Alex Bain with a key wicket – also bowled – that brought Griffins to 117 for four at the time, chasing 166. Throw in two catches earlier in the innings to aid the first two wickets and it was quite an evening for Veillard, who ironically plays his Division One cricket with Griffins. ‘I was just bowling straight – good line and length, with the length being the key really’, said Veillard. ‘They had to go reasonably big so they were playing across the line and I thought if I got it straight, hopefully they would miss it.’ One of his team-mates was St Saviour’s stalwart Adam Farish, who is also the side’s club captain and he was delighted to see his young colleague excel. To get five wickets in five balls in a Division Two match is an incredible achievement and the good thing was that there was no debate about any of them’, said Farish. ‘Three of them were clean bowled and the other two were lbw shouts that nobody can question – they both looked absolutely plumb. ‘Tom is a really good wicket-to-wicket bowler and that was the key here in that if they missed, he hit, which happened and it is one of those once-in-a-lifetime performances. ‘He was helped by Louis Hunter getting rid of Luke Le Tissier the over before, that was the big wicket and the scoreboard pressure told, but it was still an incredible spell.’ Earlier in the evening, terrific innings from Owen Brock and Matt Thornton had set up what proved to be a more-than-competitive St Saviour’s total. Brock opened and hit 36 from just 29 deliveries and he was involved in a fine second-wicket partnership of 70 with Thornton, who struck a 35-ball 44. Some late impetus from Spencer Noyon helped St Saviour’s to 165 for seven from their 20 overs, with only Le Tissier and Sam Mauger bowling economically for Griffins. Griffins had looked on course for success at 98 for two and needing 68 more from nine overs, but then came their collapse.