A Wright Handful

Dingy provides a report summaising why we lost today and an alternative view on what we could have done differently.  An excelent account of procedings in a nutshell.

Just as he did in the championship game, Luke Wright proved a real thorn in Middle flesh at sunny Lords in the first of our home T20 bish bash boshes. His 81 off 49 balls was the mainstay of the Sussex total of 202 -3 which proved too much for the home side.

Nash won the toss and decided to bat, with the announcer out in the middle reckoning that the wicket might suit spin as the game wore on. As so often Ollie opened for an over and Mills took the second over. 12-0 after 2 was an ok start. But Murts, replacing Raynor, went for 12 in his first over and 20 in his next, so that the powerplay ended with Sussex on 58-0, quite a start. It simply wasn’t Murts day: he let a four straight through him at backward point off Bergie in the ninth over and when, surprisingly, he was brought back for the sixteenth over, he completed a pretty grim set of three overs.

We just didn’t get wickets regularly enough and most of the overs in the second half of the innings went for double-figure scores. Voges did bowl Nash in the tenth but by the time Wright holed out to Josh Davey, wickets hardly mattered. What was surprising, on a track with absolutely nothing for the seamers, was that Ollie bowled only two overs and Stirlo and Mala not at all.

Sussex had other ideas. Though we started well, Stirlo chancing his arm in typical fashion, overs seven to sixteen in our innings were bowled by a combination of Yardy, Nash and Beer. We were actually ahead of Sussex after our powerplay, 60-0, Crusty-Clown having dropped, in hilarious fashion, off a skier in the fifth over. But Nash had had four different bowlers bowl the first four overs and he soon decided that pace off the ball was the way to go.

Stirlo was well caught by Smith running around the boundary, 33 of 22 gave us a chance but he had to go on really. JD was caught in even more spectacular fashion by Joe Gatting which left Mala, Voges and the others too much to do. Jordan made it a hat-trick of fine out-catches to dismiss Rosso – who had no choice but to heave and hope – and Mala’s 61 of 43 wasn’t enough. Dex came in and hit three sixes in no time but he had to keep going for it and couldn’t. It was left to Ollie and Mills to put a bit more respectability on things (penalty runs for Sussex overtime helped) and to improve our run rate a bit which, who knows, could be important.

No real blame can be put on the batsmen, in my judgement: the problem is with the bowling. Perhaps Toby or Harry would have made a difference, if fit, but Ravi would also have been useful, for all of his inexperience.

We will see what Thursday brings but it has been a while since we won one of these games at Lords. Crowd? Big but not huge? Company, both beforehand and during the game? Excellent.

Well done to Lower Pav and Seaxe Man who have been putting leaflets through doorways, advertising out T20 home games – their operation moves to the Richmond area tomorrow and Tuesday.