Middlesex must be heartily sick of travelling down the M4 this season. After the farcical trip to Bath last month, this game was over in just over two days and a session leaving the Gloucestershire supporters, deprived of a rate weekend of County Championship, to cheer up nearby bar owners and local cricket clubs with their custom and Middlesex to rue another fruitless trip west.  

The result seemed little more than a formality even before play began on Saturday and we hadn’t even made it to the ground (from London you understand) when Steve Kirby removed Neil Dexter. We had news of the wicket in a taxi, which we willed to get down Gloucester Road faster, and thankfully made it into the ground before any more Middlesex players trudged back to the pavilion.  

Not that it would be long before that would happen though, as Jon Lewis had Berg caught behind (the Middlesex player didn’t seem happy but it looked regulation) and both he and Franklin had confident LBW shouts turned down.  

What happened next will undoubtedly go down in Gloucestershire – or at least Steve Kirby – folklore, as the bowler, fielding at long on produced a brilliant direct hit to run David Nash out. It’s a moment that Kirby will be telling everyone about for a while – and rightly so – and as Anthony Ireland, fielding on the boundary near the Jessop Stand commented “he’s never done that before”. Meanwhile, one aging Gloucestershire fan thought everything was happening a bit too early, “I can’t go to the pub yet,” he shouted, “It’s not one o’clock”. 

It was Ireland who would take the next wicket - but not before Udal and Silverwood showed a little resistance (perhaps they had been listening to the old boy on the boundary), putting on 52 and ensuring Glos would bat again - with a great delivery to Udal that saw another catch behind for Steve Snell. Cue the entrance of ex-Shire bowler David Burton who faced only five balls before he was out lbw to Vikram Banerjee leaving Glos with a total of 45 to chase. 

 In true cricket fashion lunch was neither postponed nor taken early and so we had what we thought would be two overs before the break. In fact we ended up with three as Owais Shah bowled the second in super-quick fashion and as the players trooped off for lunch there were still 40 runs to get.  

With the Lions game due to start at 2pm plenty of Glos fans didn’t make it back after lunch but as the sun had come out we thought it rude not to watch the victory procession. Berg did make a breakthrough too, with Ireland captain Will Porterfield caught in the slips by his English counterpart Andrew Strauss but when Hamish Marshall strode in he clearly wasn’t planning to stick around. Whether Hamish could hear the music signalling the start of the Lions game as we could I don’t know, but he smashed 28 off 16 balls, including five boundaries, to ensure that the team could get back to the Pavilion pretty much for the start of play. Ironically, the Sky card for the TVs at Nevil Road, which has been conspicuous by its absence all season, had finally turned up in time for Saturday but with the game wrapped up by 2pm there was little call for it.  

As we ambled back to the pub Woody, the PA announcer, rubbed it in just a little more as we heard his dulcet tones wafting across the ground “Thank you gentlemen for a hard-fought match!”     

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