Emma and B Spice up a Royal Flush

Rogers and Out describes a major event part of our 150 year celebration in Royal surroundings, with some surprise guest appearances, There's a lack of ball by ball commentary but none the less an excellent read. 

Looking at the events for our 150th anniversary this year, I quite fancied the game against the Royal Household at Windsor.  It was a less attractive proposition when the prices were announced, but when I decided to apply, it was fully booked and so we had to go on the waiting list.

I thought that there was a good chance that we wouldn’t get  an opportunity to go, so we decided to have a corporate day at the T20 against Hampshire at Merchant Taylor’s. Needless to say, as soon as we’d committed to that, space became available at the Windsor match and so we ended up doing both.

Our day started on the Metropolitan line and the 222 bus to West Drayton, followed by First Great Western to Windsor & Eton Central via Slough.

After a quick breakfast at Billy’s in the station concourse, we ambled over towards the ground, and were surprised by the large police presence. We gained admission to the ground after showing our tickets and passports to the local constabulary, then partook of a Pimms reception followed by lunch.

We’d been informed that there would be a VIP in attendance, but to my surprise, it wasn’t Kev, but HRH the Duke of York.

Ian Lovett announced the batting order of our team, which included Emma Inglis and Beth Morgan, in addition to Mike Gatting, Norman Cowans, David Nash and several of our current first XI.

We batted first with Steven Finn opening alongside Emma Inglis. I must confess that I watched these opening overs from the comfort of my lunch table and saw Finny caught at long on early in in the proceedings. Emma and Murts departed in quite quick succession, leaving Mike Gatting and Beth Morgan at the crease.  Gatt, to be honest, wasn’t at his most fluent and was eventually gone, with the captain Chris Rogers replacing him.

Our captain quickly upped the ante, despite playing his first ball right handed, with numerous solid blows, ably supported by Beth. She was eventually run out for an impressive 32 and her namesake Eoin took her place. Both batsmen increased our scoring rate but Morgs eventually bit the dust to be replaced by David Nash.

Nashy knocked it around for a while, before being dispatched and replaced by Nick Gubbins. There was a super catch take by a Royal Household fielder at deep midwicket, but due to excess consumption of beverage, I can’t recall who it was or who was out (this was deemed to be the champagne moment of the match). We ended up all out for 209 from 29.5 overs with Chris Rogers making 76.

At this point, tea was taken, and I had the good fortune of meeting up with our friend from Down Under, Pantherlike. We saw Norman Cowans take an early wicket, and watched Angus Fraser toiling  along with John Emburey. Part time bowlers Chris Rogers, Eoin Morgan and Nick Gubbins were also part of our attack, the result of which was a 40 or so run victory for Middlesex.

Overall, it was a lovely day spent with nice company although it was sad that many of our stalwart fans were not present.