Middx going down at the Riverside

5 wickets
By Barmy Kev
May 12 2006

Having volunteered for doing report for day 3 of match from my remote position, I approached this with trepidation. How can I compete with Ged and Daisy’s efforts from day 1?

I was considering a Mr and Mrs Barmy double act. I was going through the different result permutations, including rain intervention, when the Mrs mentioned who would win on Duckworth & Lewis. At this stage, I realised I was better on my own.

So my early morning view was let’s hope for lots of rain to put us in position of a dishonourable draw. My mole at Durham gave me good news at 10:15 showers, covers on. Same at 10:45. Then at 11:00 yes no play, earliest start 11:15. Rain Rain Rain la la la, Rain rain rain la la la! Then at 11:10 even the commentator caught out, play suddenly started as he was adjusting mike. A quick shower soon after and then clear weather. Damn we have to rely on our cricket ability rather than the gods.

Silverwood, perhaps the only plus so far from this match, gets an early breakthrough. My view is damn, potentially more time for them to bowl us out. I sent the following e-mail to those nice chaps at the BBC.
“Would you agree if Middx do manage to eat through their batting and a target of 250 set, given the conditions, intermittent rain forecast and form of our batsmen very unlikely we would achieve this and all it would do is give them more time to get 10 wickets.
I can't see Middx winning under any circumstances, so best hope for draw would be a delayed declaration.
Apologies for my negative outlook”.
The response was that he could understand my pessimism especially in light of recent showings and thought it was a good point. Embrury was quoted as saying anything around 250 would be competitive and the commentator felt our batsman would look at this as a rallying call and we could rise to challenge. However, I detected his words were more in hope than optimism.

As we struggled for a further breakthrough the physio came into commentary box. I was concerned to hear Mel B came into this game with a slight back niggle, which he aggravated further during game. There was positive news about Chad’s progress. Nash was said to be fully fit. Then when they started talking about their poker sessions (not for money, but pride I must add), as game was drifting away I thought it was time to work on the garden until after lunch.

There was an inevitable post lunch acceleration. Then yes off for bad light at 2:30. “ We love you black cloud we do”. I’m off out for a few hours hoping to come back to discover that this will turn to rain.

Lo and behold when I return, I discover Durham are bowled for 261 out at a stage when they would have declared so no big deal and Middx 63-4 with our 2 stalwarts Joyce Shah out, I can’t believe it. Compton and Dalrymple see us safely to close.

Tomorrow, there are mixed weather forecasts. With game out of reach all we can hope for is that the negative ones are correct. OK everyone lets all do a rain dance!