Middlesex run out of ideas and wickets

London Leprechaun gives us a short report of a short morning and a bit of the afternoon. Not much more to say really.

The beauty of sport is its unpredictability as they say.  And its tendency to produce the unexpected. So it would not have been impossible for Middlesex to turn the tables today.  But maybe there was an inevitability that that would not happen, after Sam Robson’s early wicket – to a good catch I hear – within the first ten minutes. A fifty partnership he had had with Dawid Malan but fifty partnerships were just not enough with the huge mountain we had to climb.  And the wickets just fell too regularly after that.  Both Malan and Neil Dexter looked solid for a bit. But Malan fell edging to Trescothick – a decent low catch but maybe not the most necessary shot. 

The last straw was John’s Simpson’s wicket.  A perfectly timed straight drive from Neil Dexter deflecting of Meschede’s fingers as he tried to stop it and hitting the wicket with Simmo out of his ground. The worst way to get out and when it is not your match it really is not your match.  The only fortune that  possibly went our way was an edged catch by Dexter to Trescothick that was judged not to have carried.  But after that it just fell apart.

There was a huge appeal for LBW against Berg and then everyone realised that the ball had clipped the bails. Rayner gave Trecothick more catching practice (Finally the Somerset man is justifying being in my fantasy team). There was some support for Dexter – playing with confidence – from James Harris, which at least took us beyond lunch.

But it did not take long after that.  Harris chipped a leading edge back to Gregory who had time to wait for the ball in his run through – he could barely drag himself from the pitch. Murts tried to belt every ball he received to the boundary, and managed one four and a huge skier that had Gregory and Compton looking at each other as the ball landed in between them.  But it did not last long as guess who got yet another slip catch. And Ravi is not a batsman.  Soon it was all over. With a big bounce back needed next week.

And given my views on new players signing for counties this late in the season I was pleased in a way that proper Somerset players – Gregory and Trecothick took five wickets and five catches respectively.

And my mood it not improved to get home and see big scores from Williamson and Gambhir – two other late signings.