using System.Linq;
matches.Cast<Match>().Any(x => x.Groups["name"].Value.Length > 128)
You just need to convert it from an IEnumerable to an IEnumerable<Match> (IEnumerable<T>) to get access to the LINQ extension provided on IEnumerable<T>.
When you specify an explicit range variable type, the compiler inserts a call to Cast<T>. So this:
bool result = (from Match m in matches
where m.Groups["name"].Value.Length > 128
select m).Any();
is exactly equivalent to:
bool result = matches.Cast<Match>()
.Where(m => m.Groups["name"].Value.Length > 128)
.Any();
which can also be written as:
bool result = matches.Cast<Match>()
.Any(m => m.Groups["name"].Value.Length > 128);
In this case the Cast call is required because MatchCollection0 only implements ICollection and IEnumerable, not IEnumerable<T>. Almost all the LINQ to Objects extension methods are targeted at IEnumerable<T>, with the notable exceptions of Cast and OfType, both of which are used to convert a "weakly" typed collection (such as MatchCollection) into a generic IEnumerable<T> - which then allows for further LINQ operations.