If only he was with us

By Way Out West
August 7 2014

A very harsh report from Way out West that may burn some bridges . Take a deep breath and read on.    

I awoke feeling reasonably confident, after all, we won our last match against Surrey and we can`t continue being rubbish forever. I reminisced about previous Somerset one day clashes: Vaas getting Tresco LBW first ball (we lost), the controversial rain effected game where Somerset were given an extra overs power play and Langer made hay (we lost) and Paul Weekes sending sixes into the grandstand (we won).

A combination of a late train and a possibly dodgy breakfast and subsequent additional “comfort” breaks meant I missed the first few overs. Middlesex had been inserted and were ten for none. The following twenty overs involved lots of playing and missing, badly timed shots and the upshot was that Rogers and Malan had only seen us to 64/0 after twenty overs. The helpful early bowling conditions and two new balls hadn`t made scoring easy.

I remained hopeful that we would kick on and indeed we did in the next ten overs to more than double the score after 30 overs. Rogers had departed to the part time spin of Myburgh but Stirling seemed up for it in one of his rare Ireland/injury free outings.

A reasonably large crowd boosted by Somerset supporters, children and holidaying adults watched on happily as the power play approached. My Dad and I explained the power play to my nephew as best as we could: this is intended to help the batting side but often hinders and lots of wickets can fall.

Eat your heart out Nostradamus. Stirling got an absolute peach of a delivery from Alfonso the Great, no complaints there. Morgan came in, played two lovely shots, one an advance down the wicket and a four, the other a ramp shot for a four. He then played a poor shot and was out after the ball had spent long enough in the air to be scorched by the sun. Kev later opined that as Morgan had won us the game against Surrey he deserved a break. While I would normally concur with this assessment, I am in an unforgiving mood and he is the first to go into the naughty boy book.

Readers of a nervous disposition look away now, worse is to follow. Higgins joined the fray and as a product of Bradfield College always receives a favourable review from yours truly. However, Malan, well set on 82 set off for a single and young Ryan remained rooted in his crease. Was he asleep? Temporarily stunned by the sight of a large midweek crowd? Who knows but despite Dawid reaching the non-strikers end Higgins never flinched and didn`t even do the decent thing and fall on his sword and pass Malan to allow the clearly better set batsman to continue his innings.

To add insult to injury Higgins then set off for a suicidal run and ran out Dexter. 184-5. Lunchtime must have been interesting. Simmo who has been in excellent form this season, played one good stroke before edging one to Barrow and a seemingly strong position had been wasted. Middlesex 2014 in a nutshell.

Higgins did his best to amend for earlier misdemeanours with a couple of lusty blows before Rayner heaved a couple of sixes to take us to 255-7, a good 40 short of par by my estimation.

The reply started with Murtagh looking very tired and a good 10mph short of pace and TRJ looking at his best as he ran in at full pace and took the prized scalps of Tresco and Compton. This false dawn was soon exposed as our attack went from bad to worse.

Dexter is a whole hearted trier but has been bowled to death this season. With Berg and Wilkin out for the season the club should have taken the opportunity when it arose to sign a quality bowler/all-rounder on loan. I don`t know, someone like Groenewald who had ended up at Somerset.

Our spinner Ravi Patel was on Lions duty and we were reduced to the slow bowling of Rayner and it was toothless at best. Malan with his part time leg spin caused more problems and indeed should have had the dangerous Trego stumped when he was 49 but Simmo missed the chance. He had an LBW shout turned down and a further two chances from leading edges. Four in total, four more than Rayner managed. He is something of a sacred cow at Middlesex due to one performance against Surrey but he isn`t good enough.

Podmore continued to wheel away with much relish, the contrast between an enthusiastic upstart and the 100% commendable, but seemingly shot to pieces Murtagh was plain to see.

The final result may seem close on paper but in truth Somerset strolled home thanks to the superb 100 from Trego and fine support from Ingram.

We simply have to make improvements for 2015, this side is crying out for an all-rounder, Will Gidman would be perfect. Rogers isn`t coming back so let’s sign Angus Robson who is out of contract, continue the progress of Gubbins and Higgins (with a running coach), sign a top class overseas bowler to give Murts a break and release some of the deadwood. Rant over, I am sure many will disagree but the poor performances of the last three months need to be addressed before we go into terminal decline again.