batted well but. . .

By London Leprechaun
August 6 2015

London Leprechaun gives us a view of the Notts Royal London Cup game from a housebound perspective. You would think it was easy to listen to and watch cricket when you are not mobile but as this report shows life gets in the way. Not so much cricket as insight into convalescence. You didn't really want to relive the cricket did you?

Given the tube strike I was unlikely to get to Lord’s today but my preparations for listening to and watching cricket were slightly different to normal at home listening. Being on crutches means more planning and using shoulder bags to make sure I have everything to hand sitting down. Essentials include phones  - two varieties, charger, pen, paper, TV remote, Radio times, fruit bowl, chocolate, Long handled picker, and coffee making machine.

That organised, I was ready for mixing Sky TV and Kevin hand commentary. The test promised more than Lords, but I was still hoping for my target to get to live cricket again by the Royal London Cup final could still involve Middlesex.(Yes I know I only had the operation a week ago and I’m probably in anaesthetic land still!)

With a little time to spare I listened to Nick Gubbins reflecting on yesterday; he sounds a spit for Tom Daley on audio. Although he seems a sensible young player he is probably a bit deluded expecting a big crowd today; it’s a shame that this match coincides with the tube strike especially as it is our first day of using the Presidents Box; it looks a nice view from the Middlesex tweet. 

By 10.30 I had Sky TV on mute and Kevin on the radio. The first surprise is Scott in for Dexter, losing his bowling when we don’t really need to strengthen the batting, particularly as Notts have a very strong batting lineup; similar to last year when they absolutely hammered  us. Meanwhile it looks as if England have won the toss and put the Aussies in at Trent Bridge. So plenty of Middx players to keep an eye on there as well; it looks like a good chance to get some physio done while keeping an eye on the television and an ear to the computer.  The physio is done listening to the first overs of our match which results in the wickets of Hales and Lumb while being distracted by the incredible opening over from Trent Bridge. Might have gone a bit wrong on the repetitions and numbers of sets of my exercises.

However, my attempts to multitask at the cricket then got distracted by visits from friends, District nurse, cleaning ladies, and others, including kind people delivering various helps for living. You don’t realise that you need a sponge on a stick until you can’t have a bath or shower and need to clean your feet!

In between all this I caught snatches of the commentary and got the impression that we bowled, on the whole tightly, fielded reasonably, (Sandou took a stunning caught and bowled), while Wessels batted beautifully and held the Notts innings together. Once he was out it looked as if we might restrict Notts to a much lower score,  but their late order batting got them to a pretty good total. Made me less convinced about losing the bowling of Dexter. I also managed to see the incredible catch that Stokes took at slip; reminiscent in quality of the Strauss one - also at Trent Bridge - in 2005; and the beautiful ball that Finny bowled to dismiss Neville.

I’m sorry can’t tell you much about the afternoon and our batting display, as that was taken up by another visitor and my only way of getting any clue about what was going on was through the wicket notifications on my phone. When it kept quiet for a large part of the afternoon I was reasonably happy that we might be making a fist of the target. And it looked as if we made a decent start and up to the fourth wicket going were still in the hunt.  It was nice to see that Robbo got a decent score but it seems that once he was out we folded. I heard a bit of commentary when we were seven wickets down and TRJ was giving it some welly. But once he was out, I’m afraid I abandoned commentary and concentrated on heating  soup and chopping salad, which is slightly more complicated and long winded when you can’t stand on one leg and have to sit down even to chop a tomato. At that point it was actually more fun to listen to the highlights from Trent Bridge while I was doing this, then wait for the inevitable last wicket.

I guess my listening today was a bit like our one-day season: disjointed, messy, subject to unforeseen circumstances, and in the end very disappointing. The fixture list and scheduling has not done the players any good and it will take a strong effort to get back into the proper four day mindset. But we need to do that quickly. Mind you if the test match carries on at this ridiculous rate we might even be able to have Finny back with us by Sunday or even Saturday!