The Tale of Three captains and the Canterbury Cannonade
What a knock!
By Seaxe Man
June 12 2010
Seaxeman reports from Canterbury as we win our first 20/20match of the season and he was lucky enough to witness a wonderful innings from our "Temp" skipper Adam Gilchrist. Read all about it...
Overview
An evening of much incident and difficult to know where to start. Fortunately the weather forecast was inaccurate, and the sun shone throughout the game in more ways than one. Travel both ways from Vic was ok and I met Barmy Paul in the Bat and Ball opposite the ground. He disposed of a spare ticket for a score to a Kent fan. We supped a pint and watched the end of the SA/Mex footie match on the big screen, where incidentally he got a result. The beer was very reasonably priced at £2.50 a pint and outside, burghers were knocked out for £2.50 with the double burgher 3 quid. Very tasty they were too.
While in the B and B, got a text from Beefy to say that Shaggy had resigned the captaincy, Gilly would be in charge for 6 T20's (according to Torygraph Sport) and Dex was pencilled in to take the reins long-term. NB. If Gilly captains in the next five, this would include the game at the SWALEC.
Before the start, the Kent Dancing Girls, known as the Spitfires Sweethearts, comprising 4 blondes and a brunette appeared and gave a dance routine on the lines of The Pantherettes. I smell the ECB Marketing Dept at work here. Bomber incidentally is the Kent mascot and flapped his wings appropriately.
Teams: Kent were as per scorecard, Northeast was 12th man. Middle made one change, Robbie Williams replaced Tom Smith....and Gilly made the call at the toss. Middlesex won the toss and elected to chase.
The wicket as the scores suggest was a decent batting track and the St Lawrence Ground has a fair bit of acreage to defend. We sat near the Pav, which had the shorter boundary.
Kent innings
The Powerplay overs 1 to 6.
At the conclusion of the powerplay, Kent had 51 (51 for 1 to be precise) on the board so a fair start for them. Murts and Pedro shared the first four overs. The wicket of Key fell to Pedro, last ball of the 2nd over when he swished at, and top edged to Gilly. Pedro also had a strong lbw shout turned down against Van Jaarsveld, last ball of 4th. Robbie and Bergie bowled the 5th and 6th overs. Robbie nearly bowled Denly first ball and caused Van Jaars to slice the second, safely for him. We managed a total of 11 dot balls during the PP but Pedro bowled a no ball which he managed to redeem by bowling the extra as a dot ball. Kent found the boundary 7 times but with no maximums. Denly was showing his first decent form for quite a spell. Likes coming down the wicket to drive. Gilly was constantly up and down the pitch encouraging his bowlers and making plenty of field changes as the situation demanded. The third and fifth overs were best for Kent going for 12 apiece.
Overs 7 to 20.
In the final 14 overs, we restricted Kent to a further 132, which sounds a lot, but we never let the game get away. We managed a further 11 dot balls and 21 singles, but dropped two catches, the last off the last ball. The fielding stood up well with a couple of wobbles near the end. Kent took a further 9 boundaries in this spell, 3 of which were sixes, one of which from Darren Stevens, had my name on it, but fortunately crashed into the empty seat in front of me. Dex was our best bowler economy wise, taking pace off the ball, 4-0-23-1, and Pedro spoiled his figures bowling a second no ball which caused Gilly to offer some advice. Pedro 4-0-38-3. We also took wickets at opportune moments removing Denly for 44, Van Jaars for 50, Stevens for 34 and Jones for 39, just as they were getting into their stride. The Kent announcer natch, kept calling for more support from their fans, though strangely he went quiet a bit later.
Middlesex innings
The Powerplay overs 1 to 6.
I will deal with Gillies innings as a separate item later. This time the batting order looked up for the job, Gilly, Rocket, Dex, all of whom can hit over the top in the PP. That is crucial. Following them Shah, Morgan, Malan, Berg. We had 63 off the first 6 overs, our best start. From memory previously 62, Strauss, Smith Rose Bowl 2008. Maybe a happy omen. A jet lagged Rocket gave Gilly good support in his cameo 17. The first wicket going down in over 4. 39 for 1. We scored 10 boundaries (2 sixes), with Gilly smashing 3 fours in over 6. Dex then came in and continued the same job. Kent managed 10 dot balls and we had an advantage of 12 runs from which we never looked back.
Overs 7 to 19 ( over 20 was not required)
We didn’t require over 20 to overhaul the Kent total. As Gilly and Dex launched their assault on the Kent bowlers, posting a stand of 104 off 57 balls. The ground went quiet. Over 9 was particularly brutal, bringing 19 runs, the last two balls being sent for 6 by Dex. The 10th over brought further mayhem bringing a further 14, 6 and 4 to Gilly. Over 12 brought grief to Tredwell with 3 sixes, two to Gilly, one to Dex. Dex's wicket finally fell at the end of over 13 when a brilliant catch on the boundary by Blake removed him for a superb 45. This spurred Gilly on and when he finally fell for 106 in over 17, with the score at 177, the job was done. We lost Eoin for a duck, but Ace and Dawid saw us over the line. A great win and our most successful run chase I believe in 20/20. The best Kent bowlers were Mahmoud and Coles with a veil in sympathy drawn over the rest.
Gilly's innings.
For those who saw the Pollard innings on Wed, the same clean hitting marked Gilly's knock. One six landed on top of the Pavilion roof, a massive hit, two went into the car park and like Pollard's there was so much height and distance on his hits, the fielders were mere spectators. There were also a number of excellent ground strokes for four. His sprinting between the wickets was like a cheetah and any fears on his fitness were banished. In addition, in the field he was constantly keeping the bowlers and fielders on track. It was pretty much a chanceless knock, though he slowed a trifle when he approached the nervous nineties. His stats were 47 balls with 7 sixes. I have been very lucky to see both his and Dawid's 20/20 tons for us. It certainly made the trip down well worthwhile. On completing his ton, you could sense he felt mighty relieved and satisfied. He acknowledged the generous applause around the whole ground.
Needless to say, this win has got us back in the mix, and hopefully can be followed up in the next two games.
Extras
Repaired to The Bat and Ball afterwards. Ran into a couple of Fulham/Middle fans. One of whom kept bemoaning the fact that we are 'Norf of The River' and he Fulham born, now lived in Brownhatland in Cheam, which wasn’t to his fancy. He referred rather disparagingly, to Essex only beating the Brownhats by 9 runs on Thurs night... Anyway parted company after a kiss on the back of clasped hands.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:06:15:10:27:08 by Ged.
It's really nice to hear about what happened rather than just watching the numbers change on the telly!
Thanks for the report... it must have been a pleasure to write!
Kimmy
To clarify, I understand that Gilchrist will play in and captain nothing less and nothing more than our three remaining Twenty20 matches at Lord's, Tuesday's match at Richmond and Saturday's match v Australia at Lord's and that as of the match v Glamorgan at the SWALEC Stadium on 26th June Neil Dexter will take over the captaincy.
On the subject of how quiet Canterbury was last night while Middlessex batted or more to the point how little pleasure the locals got from watching Middlesex's batsmen excel, it seems that the demographics of the crowd differ for matches at Lord's to matches at Canterbury. While attending Middlesex's two Twenty20 matches at Lord's this season, it seemed that a high proportion of the crowd were neutrals who more interested in watching an entertaining cricket match and seeing lots of action as opposed to lending their support to the home side. However, it seems that at Canterbury the crowd were mostly behind the home side and as such derived little pleasure from seeing the away side excel. For example, during Kieron Pollard's innings at Lord's most of the crowd seemed to get carried away in the innings, whereas during Adam Gilchrist's innings at Canterbury most of the crowd seemed to view the innings as a dagger to their heart, which is how I felt while watching Pollard's innings.
On one hand I dislike being surrounded by neutrals at Lord's as they tend to move while the ball is alive and do not lend any support to Middlesex, but on the other hand I know it is financially important to the club to attract as many spectators as possible since the higher the attendance the more money we get, even if the neutrals aren't going to add anything positive to the viewing experience of regulars such as myself.
Click here to read why I sensationally sacrificed the big bucks of Chelsea for the adventure of Watford
(image on left not representative of how relative my support of Watford is to my support of Middlesex)
They were not that bothered at all, so long as the beer flowed.
I take you point though, that a higher percentage of their punters are shall we say one-eyed.
As regards the neutrals at SJW. The Middle are like wine, they grow on you are after awhile.
Plus don't 4get SJW suffers a lack of atmosphere (partisan), due to it's 28.5thou capacity and that is a fault with all major sporting venues.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2010:06:13:12:05:08 by Seaxe_Man.
I wish I could have been there.The Gilchrist innings must have been fantastic to watch.
Still, I will hopefully be at Lords tomorrow cheering the boys on,in what is a very important game for both sides.
I was away in Bristol Fri/Sat (just got back) - left for the M4 on Fri when Gilly was 81n.o. and didn't find out what happened until a few hours later.
Tried all the national papers this morning for a report - but they all seemed to have completely forgotten cricket exists now that the damned football has reared it's ugly head again.....thank goodness we have this website for relaible accounts of what happened.
But this growing 'parochialness' of cricketing crowds these days! What is it with people? Do they think they'll lend wait as a 13th man by their coldness directed to the visitors?
Case in point was England's recent sojourn down to Bangladesh. Here's an apparently rabid cricket loving nation finally hosting some serious opposition in the form of the winning Ashes team, yet even an English boundary was greeted with silent grandstands and glum faces. Why? Did Bangladeshi's expect that their team was going to inflict some sort of series whitewashing of the Poms? Were they thus really disappointed/shocked that England might even venture to hit a boundary....I mean how often is it that really big names visit their shores? and don't even start me on Indian crowds who really do think the sun shines out of their teams' collective .... well, you know...to the exclusion of all else.
A little more civility in cricket crowds would go a long way to restoring the friendly, and dare I say it 'Englishness' of going to the cricket. Polite acknowledgement of a 'visitor's good performance is all that is needed. After all, cricket is NOT football and the pack mentality does not add to the spectacle!
From experience I have found Kent least hospitable of away teams.
Barmy Kev
I'm only here for the tele
Oddly enough I found most of the Kent fans very friendly for the CC match last year, so perhaps it is just the one dayers that bring out the unwelcoming bods.
Click here to read why I sensationally sacrificed the big bucks of Chelsea for the adventure of Watford
(image on left not representative of how relative my support of Watford is to my support of Middlesex)
Date: 13 June, 2010 10:22
This is a very good report, although was expecting comments on all 234 balls.
I do in fact have a record of all 234 balls Kev. But out of respect to LoverBoy, condensed it a bit.
Glad you all enjoyed it. I know Barmy Paul, Norf of the River and I enjoyed it.
Life after Pollard.....