Middlesex in a spin as Surrey streak to another win

London Leprecahun ventures south of the river to report on a match which started brightly but went downhill fairly quickly. We hear about oval people, streaking people, cars on the outfield and fireowkrs. And some cricket in between. A typical day at the T20 office.

When you leave Vauxhall Station there are Oval Ambassadors pointing you to the ground.  Not that the people are Oval you understand – they are normal shape people albeit with very big pink fingers. As you walk down Haryleford Road, there are loads of banners to reassure you you are headed the right way. Whatever you think of Surrey their PR is good.

The ground is bathed in sunshine and with a Pimms in hand, settled on a balcony overlooking the playing area this seems a good place to be.  We win the toss and decide to bowl first. This is the same wicket Surrey defended a low target with the other day and although we are good at chasing targets at the moment on this bright sunny day maybe it would be better to bat first.

Josh Davy is in for Paul Stirling and Ravi Patel gets another chance to show how good he is in front of a huge crowd.

The wicked is very central and the boundaries are huge. Probably about twice as big as they were in the Essex match yesterday. Middlesex fielders on the far boundaries look miles away, and combined with a rubbish tannoy system, two confusing scoreboards, it is very difficult to know exactly who fielded what.

So please forgive any confusion in this report.

Neil Dexter, in the post match interview after the Essex game, had mentioned the need to stop sides getting away with a flyer in the early overs and after five overs with Surrey just 30 odd runs on the board and one wicket down it looked as if we had succeeded in keeping the score within pounds. However two huge sixes from Roy in spite of the long boundaries, put pay to that and after six overs Surreyhad got to over 50. It took Ravi Patel to start tying things up:  Ponting who has been keeping Roy quiet company was nicely caught by Davey off almost his first aggressive shot of his innings. Next ball Roy was given out LBW – not that he was in the least bit impressed. And for the umpteenth time this season I’ve got a picture of the not a hat-trick ball. After that the Surrey run rate dropped steadily, as Middlesex spinners get them under good control. Ravi bowled beautifully again; I only hope England selectors were not watching prior to the announcement of the first Ashes squad tomorrow! He certainly has the knack of taking wickets at crucial times as well as being pretty difficult to score off. Adam Voges was also getting in on the act and Surrey hardly any boundaries between the dismissal of Roy and the closing overs. They lost wickets regularly going for bog shots, and Middlesex fielders on the boundary furthest away from us were kept very busy. Some decent catchers were taken and one stunning one by Malan running round the boundary to take the ball single-handed. There was also a great low catch by Toby R-J and, in general, Middlesex fielding was sharp.

However, just as were remarking on the lack of boundaries, the last two overs were expensive with a little explosion by de Bruyn:  and we seemed to be in the familiar position that we have been all this series: of letting sides get away at the beginning, getting back control in the middle and then losing it again in the last couple of overs. Surrey, from 104/7 got themselves to 147. And how we escaped without penalty runs for slow bowling who knows unless Don Shelley was doing more magic through the radio.

Mind you during the interval Surrey had to resort to driving a car round the outfield to rough it out, and fire fireworks into the middle of the square to add smoke to the general atmosphere which is beginning to get dark and a little.

In Paul Stirling’s absence we opened  the innings with Adam Rossington and Malan and all went well for the first  two overs or with Dawid  continuing his fine form with some beautifully flowing shots while Rossington was his usual thumping self.

However the early loss of Miaan driving over expansively at a ball from Dernbach pegged the batting back, followed closely by the wickets of Denley, Voges and Rossington.  The light was in that in between period between the sun going down and the floodlights taking full effect which must make seeing the ball tricky.  Thought that must affect the fielders as well. We went from 28/0 to 45/4.  And the Surrey spinners were hard to get away, although Dexter and Berg played solidly to start a recovery but just as I said this is still doable, Berg played an inside out shot to give Ponting a simple catch and walked off furious with himself.  Just as we remarked on how good the running between the wicket had been this year, John Davey did not respond quickly enough to a call for two and a good throw from Roy did for him.  After that we did not need to worry about saying anything.  The good Azhar and the good Dernbach turned up for the closing overs and the run rate became impossible, even when the scoreboard kept giving us extra balls – we needed 55 from 32 balls after 15 overs, than 22 of 14 with two overs to go. Kyle Mills hit a brave straight six to most people’s surprise but once we needed 18 off three balls it was game up. The last ball ended with a wicket that says caught Davies but he took it nearer square leg than the wicket and that was that.

In between we had two streakers which can’t have helped anyone’s concentration, and the crowd in the Peter May stand got extremely noisy.  It felt like an unpleasant place to be down there. The downside of packed grounds at T20 matches. Fortunately there was enough time to see Andy Murray home and let the majority of spectators leave before heading back  north of the river. By this time Oval ambassadors had been replaced with police officers.