Middlesex CCC
Middlesex take a very early Barf
Team going home
By Barmy Kev
May 5 2009
This a difficult report on a absolutely dire performance by Middlesex. Did Kev make the right decision in going? This report carries a MTWD health warning. Read on if you're brave enough!
Should I stay or should I go now.
On a back of an awful week personally not sure whether I was going to go ahead with this trip earmarked at beginning of season. Putting my personal issues to one side the weather forecast was not favourable, the Kent result did not bode well and this would involve great time and expense, with a very early start when had loads of other things to do. However, some good friends were travelling and Ged politely reminded me I had agreed to do report and thought go for it. Up to 100 overs of cricket could be good therapy.
Taking the P
Amazingly got up 6:00 with full vigour looking forward to day. Bank Holiday TFL travel proved to be successful as every connection from Canons Park to Paddington on time. I planned on joining the Turkey’s, Hackneyshire and Dasher Denning on 8:00 and meeting with Beefy and co. later all of whom had bought various cheaper advanced tickets and had great delight in telling me how much they have saved as opposed to my non advanced purchased return. I had an hour to kill at Paddington with a call of nature necessary couldn’t believe it costs 30p to use conveniences. I remember when such a process was called “ spending a penny”. Tried to get as much value as possible, but having only a cup of teas worth to dispose of couldn’t prolong this.
The journey up was good. Got to the The Rec with ¾ hour to spare. Stewards confiscated my wine only to see others were able to take booze in. Had good seat by pavilion entrance. Was quite a distance from bar, but thought why not try sitting through game sober?
Middx Recked
The shortest part of report will be describing the cricket from the Rec. Hughes out early LBW playing no shot-looked a bit high from where I was. I could hear the crash bang wallop sound of him in pavilion clearly indicating he was not happy with decision. Trego was getting plenty of movement but he was hardly unplayable. Wickets falling and at 22-4 Beefy said words that were music to my ears. “ Kev Bar”. We did and on 10-minute process another wicket and one more run. At this stage there was a £1 sweepstake competition of how many overs would we last. I went for lowest of 27. I was hoping Berg would do well so I could produce A Roman Bath like heading (Roman was his MTWD username) and his 30 was only respectable score.. Things looked promising when at 46-6 we went off for rain as Ged texted me that he was doing a rain dance. I asked Berg whether we declared, as drizzle was light. Was disappointed that Ged’ rain dance efforts were as poor as our players and alas delay was very short. Shaggy who was understandably not in best of moods came out to bat and shortly returned. I tried to banter with him to cheer him up, but his response indicated that he we was not really in mood for this and in a way was good to know he is taking the teams failure to heart. There was standing ovation as we reached 50 and I cheered when all out for 65 in 24th over as I won sweepstake of £7. Part of prize was buying round of drinks for more than £7.
During break a player advised me there wasn’t really anything in pitch and batting simply was poor. I bumped into Don Shelley and he kindly photocopied the Beer Drinkers guide to Bath figuring we might need it. It started to rain, Ged’s rain dancing having effect at wrong time. We chanted, “ lets all do a rain dance”, but rain stopped at resumption
The sweepstake competition for Somerset reply was how many overs it would take to get total. I initially went for Middx win but changed this to 13. Dasher Denning won with 11 his the lowest prediction. We had fun trying to work out the fraction of run rate required almost from 3rd over. In Antiguan spirit Beefy and I were audibly acknowledging dot balls towards end were desperately trying to console ourselves. We forgot to shout “declare” to Langer at 48 Not much more to add about reply, except to say they made batting look easy.
6 hours to Kill in Barf
Now those who booked Super Saver returned were on train due to leave at 8pm. Game was over at 2pm My open return I could have gone straight home, but was persuaded to join the them to help kill time.
There was a baying mob of four Middlesex fans outside pavilion waiting to tell them what they thought. I could understand their frustration but saw no value. I would like some kind of apology for all fans there, through official website. If any players are reading this I would like them to appreciate we pay good money to see them and we are entitled to be upset about such dire performances. There was one inappropriate comment made to me by someone in team who should know better and it was fortunate I chose not to take too much offence.
Moving on there was an enjoyable pub-crawl of Bath and obvious mickey taking from Somerset fans. I felt apologetic to them for lack of cricket . There was an autacation with a busker who didn’t take kindly to our “ you only know one song” chant. The Turkeys were in full voice at final port of call the Huntsman. The publican told us to tone down our chants of “ We r sh!t and we know we are” So we changed it to “we r bad and we know we are”. Which he still didn’t like.
We had 6 hours to kill but were at one stage worried we’d miss 8 O’clock. train as we were getting comfortable. We caught it and time for sober reflection on journey home.
Conclusion
This was the worst performance I have ever seen from Middlesex. Fans who have been members longer than me endorsed this. At beginning was an issue of should I stay or go and all factors considered it would be easy to say would have rather stayed at home. But I’m glad I did go. I will certainly appreciate better times more, but it was great the camaraderie amongst us that made it bizarrely an enjoyable day. Putting into perspective my events of week, believe there are more important things in life to be upset about. . .
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009:05:09:06:23:52 by Ged.
the suppport was top class as always we just need the players to reply on the pitch(please).
Lets hope we can move forward after the last two games and start to vastly improve to be the side we know that can get playing properly.
The breweries in Bath made a few quid from us as did the buffet car in both directions.
Oh well,off to Canterbury and Edinburgh we go with hope we can do better
Great to meet you guys and will see you all again on May 17th at Lords no doubt.
Many thanks to my learned friend Dasher Denning for pointing out this misdemeanour.
1/ Sweepstake run rate wrong.
2/ The reflection on journey home was not sober
3/ Finally our performance was not "dire". It was far worse than that.
I hope these oversights have not spoilt your enjoyment of my report
Barmy Kev
I'm only here for the tele
Let us now move on, I say.
