Murtagh Most Foul

Many thanks to Dingy Bags for this excellent match report. OK, so it is merely the defunked Pro40, but cricket is cricket and a thrashing of Slurrey is athrashing of Slurrey. And Tim Murtagh removed his kid brother in the mode of removing a small zit ahead of a night on the tiles.

Apparently, no one likes the Pro40 and it’s going to be scrapped. Surrey caught the mood at Guildford today and picked a side without Nel, Batty and that chap who used to bat for us. Middlesex, on the other hand, picked their best side which showed rather more respect to the sizeable crowd that turned up at Woodbridge Road. All the seating – and there was a large temporary stand beside the pavilion, as well as a stand of six or eight rows right along one side of the ground – was pretty much full. I am not much kop at estimating the size of a crowd but 5,000?

English cricket bosses would do well to take note: 40 over cricket is popular, especially when the games are played on a Sunday afternoon. It is not the boom, bang, crash of Twenty/20. It is more like 50 over cricket with the most boring 20 overs of the game sliced off. I like it and I’m not alone.

Anyway, I was supposed to meet a friend by the pavilion which he took to mean sitting high in the temporary stand, so I watched the start from beside the sightscreen. We stuck them in, with ‘weather’ about and Finn and Murtagh opened up. Soon, Jordan (promoted to open but looking ill at ease) edged low to Ace who made no mistake and Walters was yorked without troubling the scorers.

My mate found me hereabouts and I watched the rest of the game from on high, a few seats away from a turkey or two. Suddenly, sensation! Brown, once of this parish, launched into our Timothy, hitting 6 4 4 6. The ground is pretty small but even so. Shaggy indicated to Hendo that he was needed to replace Murts. However, Berg replaced Finn and got some lift with his first ball which flew to Compo, accounting for Afzaal, who’d used up all his luck against us in the Twenty/20. So Shaggy decided that he’d let Tim stay on to bowl at his little brother.

It was here that we witnessed a piece of dreadful dissent because Henderson, having warmed up vigorously, was so disgusted by Shaggy’s change of mind that he hurled his cap to the ground/Hendo threw his cap to the ground in mock outrage** [**delete which version seems to you the most unlikely].

It proved a fine decision. Little Chris clearly knew that bigger brothers rule in the back garden, over the park, in the side streets and at Guildford Cricket Club because he obediently left the ball alone to bang into his off stump. The lower middle order did a reasonable job of building a partial recovery but Shaggy, in particular, got wickets before any serious damage could be done and a total of 213 did not seem enough.

Except that we are talking about the Middlesex batting here.

But, no need to have worried, Malan was into fluent mode at once and was striking balls square on both sides of the wicket. This was great to see. Compo was a little more sluggish at first but he, too, was soon picking up the runs at will. We were even treated to the ‘falling away-over the shoulder shot’ from a free hit. Jordan, who opened the bowling as well as the batting, was treated particularly severely. Has he decided whether he’s West Indian or English yet? On today’s evidence, no one cares.

Essentially, we were always ahead of the DL rate (and we had the odd shower or two, so this was more than academic) and even when Malan departed run out we were never in danger. Ace, appearing at 3 rather than Sam Robson (a slight pity as it turned out) hit a fifty from around 35 balls – and this after a careful start (I reckon he had only scored a single from his first 7 or 8 balls, so he advanced to 50 from roughly the next 28 deliveries). He slog-swept one six and smashed another pretty straight. The latter was off Schofield whose vociferous appealing rather annoyed me but who, at least, looked as though he was competing.

100+ for the first wicket; 217 for 1 when we passed their total; five overs in hand. It is always good to beat Surrey and it is even better to stuff them completely. But, as some Surrey members were saying at the end, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. They never turned up and it was rather a pity for such a large crowd who deserved better.

 Boy Dun Not So Good  @ Lord's/ Surplus To Requirements @ Guildford

This is a crazy season, fixture-wise. Because so little cricket has been available at home at weekends, I’ve now seen precisely the same amount of away games as I have at home. And I’m off to Derby this week.