By London Leprechaun
May 9 2013

London Leprechaun reports on a short but very satisfying day for Middlesex and Sam Robson.  We get weather and photography reports and some quiz questions for rainy days. No pirzes for the answer.  Above all we hear about the contunued immense progresss of our Anglo-Australian Sam Robson

It was a nice sunny morning about 8am.  At least from my hotel window it was.  And it looked warmish. But down at street level it was very windy and I needed to go back to the hotel to get some more clothing.  Having done that and managed to keep hold of my Middlesex cap, I found the right bus, which even waited for me to nip into a well known chemist before heading off on an incredibly complicated route round New Street Station where they are doing very complicated things to the station and the roads, but eventually found its way to the new Edgbaston.  They have a smart entrance to the ground but inside it is still a fairly soulless concrete stadium.  Though it was nice to see the old scorebox is still there, although it now has a digital screen.

I decided to sit in the sun while it still lasted. It was a very gentle start to the day. Warwickshire were waiting for the new ball and opened the bowling with Trott and Patel.  Middlesex decided to score exclusively in singles and reached 300 in a very serene manner, apart from one over from Trott when Dexter nearly played on twice in succession, and then came down the wicket with the ball thumping in his pads. A hat trick of almost wicket balls.  

I then felt the need to stay where I was until Robbo reached his 150, which he did very serenely albeit courtesy of a misfield.  I had been taking pictures of every ball he faced as he approached 150 but managed to miss that shot getting the camera focused. Oh well I’ll just to have to catch the 200 shot.

 Apart from these moments, most of the action at this point was in the sky where blue sky and fluffy cloud were putting up a valiant fight against increasing grey sky and dark cloud and I retreated to the members’ area.  They have a nice new viewing area, a smart restaurant and coffee in mugs.  The grey sky had virtually won the battle overhead though there was the odd glimpse of last defiance by the sun.  And certainly Middlesex were in sunny mood. Dex looked increasingly confident and some thumping boundaries got the score moving towards 350, while Sam Robson looked so serene and unruffled like he was just going to bat and bat and bat for ever more.

We were certainly getting more play than the weather suggested and my next task was to capture Dexter’s fifty.  Sadly he got over adventurous on 46 and mistimed a drive of Rankin to allow Jonathan Trott to take a decent running catch. And then Simmo was out just before lunch after a not very convincing innings, to a ball that turned quite a bit, and suddenly the 400 in time for bonus points was not as nailed on as it had seemed.  Thought it might have helped if we had been awarded five penalty runs when a fierce drive from Simmo was stopped by a pitch covering blowing up and trapping the ball and stopping it going for four. There was a brief discussion between the umpires about what to do and the answer was nothing.  Did I mention it was blowing a gale out there all day?

There was some rain over lunch which delayed things a bit.  A couple of fours from Gareth Berg just after we started again got things going.  But in the end it took us to the last ball of the 110^th over to get to the 400. And that was courtesy of a possible missed stumping and a deflected ball going for two leg byes.  How crucial might that point we got and Warwickshire didn’t be.  Meanwhile Warwickshire members continued to moan about the depletion of their bowling attack thanks to the Lion’s game.  Welcome to our world.

Anyway the points won and all attention back on Robbo who was continuing on his serene and unruffled way.  Camera at the ready this time from 196 onwards. So I captured him from 196 to 198;

then 198 to 199.

Then the end of the over; and a quick drink

and then another shot of his legs for 200.  A small crowd gave him generous applause and somewhere Australian and England selectors were almost certainly taking note.  And this time the camera worked! 

By the way can you see Warwickshire's over rate!

By now it was very cold, very windy and the groundstaff were poised by the covers.  But there was time enough for Sam to celebrate in the next over by thumping Patel for a 4/6/4 – a hat trick of boundaries before the next lot of rain came.  Time for coffee and cake in the lounge.  And what else do you do when it rains at away ground?  You check records and you play cricket quizzes.  Someone noticed that Sam is just 11 runs away from the highest individual score for Middlesex v Warwickshire.  We discussed when two Middlesex batsmen last scored double hundreds within days of each other (and in May) We ran one of the questions posed by the commentators during the Surrey match – which four people have played 1^st class cricket for Middlesex and Western Australia?  We tried to find the 13 (or possibly more) Middlesex players since 1945 whose fathers also played 1^st class cricket.  And we started building a decent team from people who have played for Surrey and Middlesex.  And we concluded that we will probably declare overnight and go for some bowling points.  Patel was getting some turn so just maybe Ollie might do something.  But with the weather as it is who knows.  And then we all went home or to the pub.