Howell the Helm did we lose that!

Barmy Kev reports on a very confused scoreboard and a match we managed to claw round  to our advantage and somehow lose.   

I’m on the way to Lord’s still feeling miffed about the previous two home games where we should have won, but ended up as disappointing draws.

I arrive at Lord's just over an hour late.  Glaws team are dressed like Wasps. The scoreboard shows us 96-3 from one over.    That was an eventful over.  It was soon 96-5 from 20 as Norwell achieves a Michelle. All’s not well at all as Benny Howell shows Higgo the door 115 -6. TRJ takes 14 balls to get off of the mark, but this consolidation proved valuable as he starts to accelerate.    A 100+ put on with Voges and we are perhaps looking at 270 score. They are both out in quick succession. Helm is struggling to get bat on ball and Benny Howell bamboozles him. A late cameo between Hi Fi and Ravi takes us over 250 mark with some brutal hitting from the Watford Wall including 6 off last ball. Although the scoreboard credited this to Ravi. Easy to confuse these two.  Our score looked competitive and could have been much worse.

In reply, Helm was proving to be economical and Finn expensive carrying from where we left off Thursday.  Once the opening partnership broken Glaws were struggling.     Wickets falling runs drying up Glaws are 66-5 from 22 overs.  Helm’s 7 overs were for 13. Ravi looked unplayable as he was mixing up his variation of spin.  Meanwhile Shots was doing a streak in the Long Room.  Cockbain and Benny Howell were struggling to push on and Glaws were 100+ plus and halfway behind the Vera.  I was talking about how crucial this was for our goal difference and this kind of makes up for previous disappointments.

So what went wrong? There was an over from Ravi that they hit the first boundary off of him, which was followed by a scampered single that went for 4 overthrows. This gave them some momentum. When run rate required was 10+ there were two successive sixes off of previously economical Higgins.     There were able to score singles regularly with an obligatory boundary per over. Helm came back and was being punished.  Franco had a very expensive penultimate over.  5 needed of the last over trusted to Higgins to take pace off. That worked well a six off the first ball and it was game over.

While, it was disappointing I have to say that was an entertaining game with many twists and turns.  Full credit to Howell and Cockbain for a well-judged run chase.  To be honest I was in a worse mood after Essex and Sussex farces. Meanwhile,  there were many positives which we can take and feel we can be competitive in this form. Here's to our first win soon.