Negative Spin
Players journey home
By Darren Gosling
June 15 2011
Oh dear. Darren reports on yesterdays debacle for Middlesex. He tells it exactly like it was and this does not make very good reading for us. Read on if you are brave enough.
Both teams came into this match with just a solitary win but both would have been looking for a second victory to reignite their stalling T20 campaign.
In this fixture last season the Panthers racked up their highest ever T20 score of 213 and largest victory margin of 84 runs, so no doubt the Dragons were also looking to revenge this heavy defeat.
Sadly for the Panthers none of the five batsmen (Warner, Gilchrist, Shah, Morgan & Malan) who scored all 200 runs to come from the bat were in the Panthers line-up. The Dragons came into the match without their leading runs scorer and wicket taker this season, with batsmen Rees and bowler Harris both out injured.
They did however still have in their line-up the Aussie Mark Cosgrove, who with 822 T20 runs for Glamorgan was looking to pass David Hemp (862) as Glamorgan’s all time leading runs scorer in this competition.
Dexter won the toss and elected to bat first.
Stirling and Rogers opened the innings for the Panthers while Owen (Pagoda End) and Wagg (Town End) opened the bowling for the Dragons.
The third ball of the innings was dispatched by Stirling over the long off boundary for a six, which landed inside the score box. Sadly this proved to be the only six of the entire match and probably the peak of the Panthers innings.
Stirling added just three further singles before playing a grotesque looking shot, swatting the ball to Petersen to leave the Panthers10-1.
Crook came in next and hit one boundary before having a huge swish at a Wagg delivery and feathered the ball to Wallace behind the stumps to leave the Panthers 23-2, with Rogers remaining steady and looking to anchor the innings.
With Dexter now joining Rogers, the Panthers hit their straps and doubled their score in the two remaining power play overs to take the score to 46-2.
In the 8th over with the score on 58-2 the Panthers were looking set for a score of somewhere in the region of 150 but then things all went very horribly wrong.
In fifteen seasons of watching Middx, the common theme of spectacular batting collapses has been the complete ineptitude at playing spin.
Owais Shah was far and away our best player of spin throughout this period and unfortunately just how much Ace carried us in this area was painfully evident for all to see in this match.
The Dragons having realised how poor the Panthers were at playing spin proceeded to bowl spin through all the remaining fourteen post power play overs, during which the Panthers scored 44-8 collapsing to 102 all out – our lowest ever T20 total.
Rogers chipped a simple catch to Petersen, Dexter was bowled trying to turn the ball away to the leg side, Newman was also bowled, Simpson picked out the fielder (Wright) at mid wicket, Dalrymple was stumped off of Croft’s bowling, Smith played the same shot as Rogers, McLaren was bowled by Wagg and finally Murtagh bowled by Petersen.
As the gentleman sitting two seats to my right said “At least half a dozen of those shots would have embarrassed a schoolboy”. Enough said.
So the Dragons began their reply with Cosgrove and Petersen opening the innings and Crook (Pagoda End) and Murtagh (Town End) opening the bowling.
The Panthers got off to the perfect start with Crook knocking over Cosgrove’s stumps with the very first ball of the innings. Cosgrove was left looking disbelievingly at his wrecked wicket having deliberately left the ball.
Again, sadly this was about as good as it got for the Panthers.
Though the Dragons finished the powerplay overs worse off than the Panthers had on 39-3 (as opposed to 46-2), Alviro Petersen was looking very solid and had scored most of the Dragons runs so far. Petersen with Mark Wallace then put on 29 for the fourth wicket before falling to the medium pace of Dexter. But with the score on 59-4 Petersen had already laid the foundation for victory, Wallace then guided the Dragons home with a steady knock of 40 not out with almost three overs to spare.
Two further wickets including one more from the excellent McLaren who finished with admirable figures of 3-0-7-3 did not disguise the fact just how badly beaten the Panthers were.
Some will argue that the pitch was sub standard for a game at this level, but a look at the two teams spin bowling clearly points to where the real problem was.
Glamorgan spin 14-1-56-8
Middlesex spin 7-0-37-0
The last straw for me was when the seamer Graham Wagg returned for his second spell and decided to bowl spin instead – talk about taking the p**s!
To rub salt in the wounds we then heard that Ollie Rayner had taken a T20career best of 5-18, he along with every other spinner in the South group must be eagerly awaiting the opportunity to further improve their career averages against the Panthers.
I know the club were very clear at the beginning of the season that promotion from Div 2 is the priority this season, but supporters deserve to see better performances in the T20 than this. Even allowing for injuries to Malan & Berg (two hugely key players) performances so far have been exceptionally poor.
The worry for me is the damage to confidence that a 16 game (largely losing) campaign will do to the team. Despite a fantastic start to the season in the Championship, the fact is we haven’t actually won a game since April.
Spare a thought too for Anthony Ireland who faced just one ball, wasn’t asked to bowl and spent the game fielding on the boundary. The poor guy must have wondered why he bothered turning up at all…..along with the rest of us.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:06:17:16:20:17 by BarmierKev.
You correctly highlighted the lack of technique of the batters against spin, rather than taking the easy option of blaming the pitch.
That lack of technique was matched by an umpire (who shall remain nameless), who failed to be in position to adjudicate on a direct hit.
Most of those when reviewed on TV are out: as that one certainly appeared to be.
However I was sitting only two seats away and trust me, the report was very accurate in all its gory detail.
I have never liked it when the powers that be at our club say at the start of a season that the priority is to do well in one particular competition. we should aim to win every game we play whatever the format.
As far as 20/20 is concerned, if you take away the miracle of 2008, my guess is, even though I am not a stats man, we would have one of the worst records in 20/20 since its inception of any side.
accurate. The view from my seat was the same.
Cannot really add any more.
You forgot the LP comment....
Steven Crook lined up to bowl the first ball... LP something like, 'why on earth are we using crook?? He wont get a wicket'!
It was Very funny (and happened again later!) The only funny part I have to say!
Kimmy
Team Mat Won Lost Tied NR win %
1 Warwicks83 48 28 2 5 62.82
2 Lanc 78 46 29 1 2 61.18
3 Leics 76 43 30 0 3 58.90
4 Sussex 79 42 34 0 3 55.26
5 Essex 81 42 35 1 3 54.48
6 Somerset81 41 35 1 4 53.89
7 Notts 78 40 35 2 1 53.24
8 Kent 83 42 37 1 3 53.12
9 Hants 78 38 35 2 3 52.00
10 Surrey 83 42 39 1 1 51.82
11 Northants78 36 34 4 4 51.35
12 Yorks 74 33 38 2 1 46.57
13 Middx 76 32 42 0 2 43.24
14 Gloucs 76 30 42 1 3 41.78
15 Durham 72 26 39 1 6 40.15
16 Worcs 72 28 42 0 2 40.00
17 Derbys 71 24 41 1 5 37.12
18 Glamorgan73 25 43 0 5 36.76
I must defend myself and say I think your memory is letting you down somewhat. I actually said that I thought it was crazy that we delayed bringing on our spinners rather than keeping the pacemen on.The funny thing was I said that just before Mclaren took his first two wickets not Crook at all. As well as he bowled I remained totally mystified why our three spin bowlers bowled just 7 overs in total bearing in mind the havoc their spin bowlers caused us.
At no stage did I really think deploying the bowlers as we did that we had a real chance of bowling them out other than perhaps when we got a wicket with the first ball.
If it had been up to me I would have opened the bowling with one spinner operating from one end and also having a slip installed.
For the record i think Crook is a decent player and a useful addition to our squad. The problem at the moment is that he is replacing Berg who I think is our best player.
However I think I have posted more than enough on this dreadful game and am now looking foreward to a much improved performance on thursday.
Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2011:06:16:01:32:34 by lower pavilion.
Shell shocked and deflated that evening,and,as you put,to hear Ollie Rayner took his best figures of 5-18 was the final straw.
Just hope everyone isnt at such a low point and can pick themselves up for the rest of this T20 series.
This on the Derby ground. Neither side could bat against the spin with any confidence.
Derby had a 17 year old schoolboy left arm spinner.
He finished with 4-0-16-0 on his I think, senior debut in what proved to be a losing cause, though he rightly got the MoM.
121 played 106 with Worcs winning by 15 runs.
Our on loan keeper Ben Scott was joint second topscore with 17no, boosted by a couple of ramp shots at the end for 4.
He also kept wicket at his sharpest I thought.
Honoured to have shook Ben's hand outside the Pavilion at Richmond the night before.