IT’S been almost a decade since Leigh Thomson-Mathews last properly played cricket.
The attacking opening batsman’s time with the willow before landing at Nichols Point for the 2020-21 Sunraysia Cricket Association season had been limited to cameo Willowfest appearances when back in Australia from the United States for Christmas.
“I haven’t been very helpful in those games,” Thomson-Mathews said with a laugh.
You’d forgive him for being rusty now back playing full-time.
But with scores of 67 from 23 balls in round 1 and a similarly rapid 83 runs in round 2 (a MyCricket system error prevented live scoring and ball counting during his innings against Settlers) – rust does not appear to be an issue.
Across those two innings 90 of his 150 aggregate runs have cleared the fence for six (seven in round 1, eight in round 2) and another 32 runs were from fours (four in each innings).
“I definitely got a little bit lucky, early on in the innings in both games there was a couple of missed chances – a dropped catch here or there – that definitely helped,” Thomson-Mathews said.
Based in the US for close to the past 10 years, Thomson-Mathews has a degree in medical engineering but has been working in automation engineering in Houston, Texas.
A combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and wanting to be close to family drew the 34-year-old home, which his older brother and Nichols Point coach Shaun Mathews parlayed into a recruitment.
“COVID definitely accelerated the plans to come home, but I was planning to come back to see the family and be closer to family within the next couple of years,” Thomson-Mathews said.
“I wanted to come down to see the new nephew (Shaun and wife Chelsea recently had their first child) and then Shaun convinced me to play a couple of games … now it’s turned into a few more than a couple of games.”
On a small Nichols Point ground for the first two innings of the year, Thomson-Mathews has benefitted from the boundaries being in – going aerial right from the start of his innings with a technique not quite out of the textbook.
His stance is quite open as the bowler runs in, then his feet move to a more orthodox position to play the shot – with much of the power generated from incredibly fast hands.
“I don’t know where I got that from, it’s gotten worse as the years go on, since juniors it’s been like that,” Thomson-Mathews said with a grin.
“This season the limited overs kind of encourages hitting the ball over the top, there’s less risk in it … I’m probably hitting it a little bit more in the air than I typically would.
“But then when you get in and the field spreads out you do try and settle down and bat a little bit normally, a lot of the time it just makes sense, if you swing through the ball there’s a good chance it’s going to go over – I don’t exactly know where it’s going to go over but it’ll go somewhere.”
Nichols Point skipper Brad Thomas has been one appreciative of Thomson-Mathews’ form so far.
“He is probably the best striker of a cricket ball I have played with and having him at the top of the order when the field is up is such a bonus for us,” he said.
“It just gives guys like myself and Shaun (Mathews) the ability to get into our innings without having to worry about the run rate.”
While it’s Coomealla Wentworth on the agenda today, later this month comes a personal challenge for Thomson-Mathews – playing Workers Gol Gol.
“It’s a little bit strange playing in Sunraysia and not playing for Workers, I played all my juniors there as well as a bit of my seniors,” he said.
“I love that club very much and it’s strange to play against them.”
