Plumbing The Highs and Lows

Diamond plumbs the depth as he reports on final day from Bristol. While we learn of the teams showing we also have update on a plumbing and beer crisis.

 

In a fit of madness (and beer induced) I answered Kev’s call for a day four reporter from Bristol. Unlike the other three days presenters I would not be at the ground due to a small problem of a leaking toilet and a wife who had flown to Ireland last night to attend a wedding of a colleague at school in Dingle, a 3 hour drive from Cork airport, unlike Hove tomorrow this was a job too far to volunteer for (the driving, not the match report) .I awoke to rain in London and soon after Bristol Rob posted on the site it was raining down there too. Plumber due at 9:30am, should be sorted by the time we got under way.

A fair bit of paperwork to sort out on the sale of a house took up most of those nervous hours pre game, today being the one day to sort it before tomorrows away trip. When I connected to the BBC site to pick up Kevin Hand’s comms from Bristol I learnt that Seve Ballesteros had died at the age of 54 after a long battle with cancer, a couple of years older than me and one of my all time golfing hero’s this made me rather sad. God bless you Seve, for all the talk of Tigers and other golfers, you still the man!

 11:00 comms link open no spoken words from Bristol, 11:02 BBC latest score says start delayed due to rain.11:45 and we are off and running.

 

Morning session.

Colly has Taylor caught by Simmo for 60  danger man gone, Glous are 218-6 (or is that 7) .Marshall has a broken thumb and Lewis comes in next, I am contesting the commentary volume over planes taking off from Heathrow, (poxy flight path!) every 90 seconds it gets hard to hear.242-7 Colly strangles Lewis who is not happy that his pee poor attempted hook shot has been judged caught behind by Simmo for 13.Payne in (still no Marshall). Kevin Hand then fails to read my e-mail on air for at least half an hour, gutted. Glous pass 250 when Gidman puts one through where 4^th slip should have been. Marshall is confirmed unable to bat. 254-7 Payne finally off the mark, my pain is still no sign of the plumber! Texts from Ireland with various phone numbers bear no fruit, unlike the bowling of Dial M who has Payne caught Simmo for 8(Simmo’s 4^th of the innings) and Glous are 263-8. Gidman duly gets his second 50 of the match, this one in 179 minutes. Lunch is taken with Glous 272-8, a frustrating morning with the lost 45 minutes at the start and some sticky partnerships unbroken.

Still no sign of the plumber and with beer stocks low it’s time for a trip to the off licence.

 

Afternoon Session.

224 the Glous lead with 66 overs left in the day, Marshall is a “goner” after TRJ broke his thumb and Colly finished the job off next over by jagging it on the bat handle, that’s got to hurt! Berg opens from the Jessop end, Kevin Hand suggests on comms it should be Colly as he was bothering Gidman all game. Gidman goes on to pass his first innings score of 67 and Norwell gets an edge through the slips which they do not take a run off.

A phone call from my Oxford based brother throws me, he’s out and wants to know how we are doing!! Gidman then gets his highest cc score passing his previous 89 before he is caught by Alfred E while I am taking a tactical (see it works at home too folks!), he departs for 93.We think it’s all over but Marshall (9no broken thumb) appears!  Colly then bowls Norwell for26 (his highest cc score too) and it is all over, still no plumber but Middlesex need 300 to win off 52 overs.5.76 per over anyone?

Grand weather in London this afternoon. The ice cream van is on the estate behind my house, it’s a typical tough London estate, perhaps that explains why his chimes are the theme from the Godfather!

Alfred E and Jolly open for us and we are heading towards our target off the very first ball with an Alf single. BBC commentary then goes very “Norman Collier” (kids, check it out on google ) and the game becomes hard to follow. 19-1 Rogers(5) caught A.Gidman off Lewis going round the wicket. Worse still Alfred is caught hooking by Williamson for 16 half an hour before tea. The Estate Agent and AC settle things down a bit and we reach tea on 50-2. 250 to win off 36 overs.

We last till almost hand shake time then the best bowler in the Glous line up gets AC out with a ball that hits the base of his off stump for 35. Lewis! Is there any stopping this guy? 100 up but the run rate required is getting away from us when bang on 5pm Danny clips a ball off W.Gidman to Batty, gone for 45. With Dex and Simmo in it’s time to flip the sign on the door to closed and play it out to the death. This is sorted out by the light which is seen as gloomy by the umpires who take the players from the field never to return I guess as at 18:10 my open comms link is still dead Kevin Hand is probably on his way to Hove already. Dex 14 not out  Simmo 0 not out. 42 overs lost in the game would have had a big effect on the result but hey ho we are still top of division two.

No the plumber didn’t arrive (rearranged for Tuesday) and yes the hair will still be growing for at least another week. My thanks to Kevin Hand for giving me the pictures in words of the day(as mentioned in e-mail no fee), where would we be without ball by ball commentary, we are very lucky to have a supportive BBC network in Radio London, some counties got dropped the first chance their local broadcasters had to cut budgets.

Seaside tomorrow, have a good rest of the weekend folks, if you enjoyed this report my names Diamond , if you didn’t it’s Nick Clegg.