A Tale of Two Pitches
Annoying no.11
By The London Leprachaun
June 21 2011
The London Leprachaun as a pitch inspector in disguise reports on day 2 where more wickets fell, the official pitch inspectors turn up and suddenly the pitch improves. Read on
Initially I had not expected to be at Lord’s on time today but after yesterday’s madness I decided that I really did need to be there from the beginning today. So with thanks to TFL I took a place at the top of the Edrich stand at 11.00am pretending to be a pitch inspector.
It was pleasing to see that we started with really attacking fields, although that did allow some early boundaries. The early overs did not suggest that there was anything terribly dodgy in the wicket. Colly got one to pop up almost to short leg, and Finny got a few to bounce but Kent did not look unduly worried and a few shots through the attacking fields got them quickly close to making us bat again. Shaw was being a typically annoying night watchman until Finny got one to bounce viciously and knock his helmet off. After a bit of magic treatment he was OK but was probably a bit shaken and two balls later another lifting delivery was just fended off for Robson to take a high slip catch.
Next over Colly rearranged Denly’s middle stump when he left a straight one alone and we had two new batsmen in. Kent were in a quandary as they were still behind, just, and needed to be careful with their wickets, and the runs dried up as Finn and Collymore bowled right on the money until an unconvincing hook by Geraint Jones took them past the innings defeat. Three hard hit boundaries in a Colly over prompted a double change of bowling and while Murts threatened from the Nursery End, Crook did not threaten too much from the Pavilion end, with the batsmen not having to play at very much and Kent began to move a little bit further ahead. To the point I started thinking about what total I would not want to be chasing.
At this point as pretend pitch inspector I decided that there was no need to deduct any points, and back in full Middlesex mode, started to think about going for a wicket walk when our faithful and reliable Murts struck twice in two overs with two plum lbws, to get first Geraint Jones and then Darren Stevens. Very handy – they had begun to look a little too settled and now we had two new batsmen. Unfortunately, Newman could not cling onto a low catch off Azhar Mahmood first ball – not a batsman to drop. But it looked like it might not have mattered when Crook, bowling a better line got Goodman to nick a thin edge to Simmo, and then Riaz tried to pull Murts once to often, and hoicked the ball high. Three fielders converged but in the end Jamie D took a good catch running back. Nine down and only 76 ahead – I could live with that!
But Simon Cook is a decent No 11, and is another one not to drop first ball – especially by Scott Newman again and again in the gully. Is that the best place to put one of the weaker fielders? And those drops looked very costly as they began to build an annoying partnership that was making the target very nervy, as well as scuppering my plans for spending a nice summer afternoon in Regents Park between us winning and the forum.
An hour after lunch and they were still going. And it was getting very annoying. The only thing about it was the thought that if the tail enders could bat with ease, milking singles, hitting anything short or with width there was a) nothing wrong with the pitch or b)no reason why we could not get whatever the target set. But as the two of them approached fifty it got intensely annoying. We seemed to run out of ideas a little and the bowling began to get a bit of a samey feel. Perhaps Jamie D or Dexter himself could have bowled if only to make the batsmen think about a different pace.
A Kent couple in front of us said that as soon as they both got their fifties one would be out. Very wise people those Kent people – for sure enough, the two of them got to 50 within minutes of each other and finally Cook drove once to often at Colly and Malan snaffled the chance.
So 167 to win, and over 40 overs to go today. It could be all over today one way or the other although the clouds are building up.
There was a bit of a nervy start with a couple of edgy fours, but then the opening partnership looked steady, sensible and secure, and the Kent bowling did not seem to carry any great threat (pitch inspectors please note!) Robbo in particular looks the part of an opening bat – solid defence and with an eye to hitting anything hittable for four. He found a particularly rich source of runs by chopping anything with width (along the ground) between slips and gully and the Middlesex score moved serenely along, as the scoreboard happily counted down the runs needed. Meanwhile on TMS as the rain blew away the Test Match they started talking about the goings on here (It seems a shame that it takes rain and controversy to make national media take note of county cricket but all publicity is good publicity so they say). There is an interesting debate about whether we would cop any points deduction – Alex Stewart says of course we should, Phil Tufnell is adamant we never had any control over the pitch here, then they have a longish conversation with Kevin Hand about his views on what happened. He was very clear that yesterday was down to first very good Middlesex bowling to skittle Kent and then rubbish Middlesex batting to skittle ourselves. But for that there would have been no pitch inspectors involved.
Meanwhile back at Lord’s, Middlesex moved on smoothly, and Kent began to run out of ideas. The Umpires suddenly looking concerned at something, and kept trying to attract the scorers’ attention. After a long chat with Robert Key the scoreboard changed to a big, and very red minus 4 on the over rate. Our target went well below 60 and it really looked like we can’t blow it from here. It was also getting very dark and Kent brought on their slow bowlers – for the first time in the game we had a wicketkeeper standing up to the stumps. But Goodman and Denly look like they are milkable and it seems like a concession from Kent that they are not going to win and now need to get that over rate down. But annoyingly – after an over of gentle slow bowling, of milking easy singles and twos, Scott Newman tried an unnecessarily expansive shot against Denly and was caught behind. Ho Hum.
But then it rained, and rained and rained.
So 47 runs, nine wickets and two days to get them. I refuse to be nervous!
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:06:23:00:34:18 by BarmierKev.
Barmy Kev
I'm only here for the tele