Hales Storms Taylor made to sink Middlesex

London Leprechaun gives us a moving in every sense of the word story of a match dominated by the weather, D/L and above all a Hales and Taylor show where you can only sit back and admire.

Location 1. A mixture of the need to do some errands, answer emails etc means I left home as the match was starting.  Listening briefly to the radio, Notts seemed to be making a decent start, while Kevin is concerned about rain clouds banking in the south.  Sure enough at Marble Arch it is  pouring with rain. But knowing Lord’s drainage it is still worth the bus trip to the ground. 

 Location 2. Sure enough it has stopped by the time I get there and the ground staff were actually busy trying to get the ground ready, including a variant of the rope , with a tractor pulling a large wide broom round the edge of the square. Not quite sure what that is meant to do.

Anyhow we only lose five overs and with the floodlights full on by now we have a match and Notts continue the good pre rain start.  Actually they look rather more than comfortable as Lumb and Hales make the most of a short boundary, and to put it frankly some friendly bowling.  When it wasn’t too wide of off it was too short or drifting down leg. And in between milking singles to third man Hales in particular played many clean cut shots.  Notts just piled on the runs, Hales went serenely and cleanly to his 100 and more and it was a real surprise when a long hop  from Dawid Malan went straight to Dexter.  Not that it made any difference because James Taylor just kept on with some sweet hitting and with Samit Patel in a clubbing mood Notts just raced away.  Middlesex fielding wasn’t that great either and the bowling really looked well below par with the notable exception of TRJ and to an extent Neil Dexter.  By the end the main interest was whether Taylor would get his 100 which he did with a huge 6 off the last ball of the innings.  A record Lords score by Notts and all they really need to do is bowl rather better than we did.

After a 30 minute break – why? we did show some intent by opening with Stirlo but within one over we got the most tropical style downpour.  The ground was flooded within minutes and was too heavy to even try and leave the ground.  Although at  Lord’s play is always likely when rain stops, I went home on the basis that either it would be called off or by the time I got home I could watch the Middlesex innings hopefully with a reduced target more in our favour.

Location 3.  I was right that the D/L target was more in our favour than the huge run chase thought still pretty daunting.  So I got home, switched on the TV, and found the right Sky Channel after their confusing switch of channels. Why is Sky Sports 2 now on 403 when it used to be on 402 – sensibly. Anyway I need not have bothered.  It was 9-3 when I arrived at the right place, there was a picture of David Malan with an ice pack on his arm.  And while writing this a succession of Middlesex batsmen came and went with an occasional thumping boundary to show what might have been. Notts fielded better then us, bolwed proper lengths and took all their chances. It was all over pretty quickly and I do not blame the batsmen, thought the scorecard looks bad.  I don’t think I will bother with the recording.  Roll on the Championship.