The signs are good

By Lower Pavilion
April 23 2017

Lower Pav reports on an entertaining day, while expanding on tactics after tea that appeared to be a mystery for many

A Good Day’s Cricket but a Tea Time Mystery

I drove to Lord’s and arrived nice and early and in a good mood after witnessing first hand,  joyous events in another part of London on Saturday afternoon.

The light seems okay and thankfully we start on time.  Essex 120 for 4 and we are in a strong position. The first over of the day is a maiden by Roland- Jones from Nursery End and Finn is bowling from the Pavilion End.  Bopara and the dangerous Lawrence are batting and it is he who scores the first boundary of the day.

An early wicket.  Bopara out for 6 , caught in the slips by Robson off the bowling of Roland- Jones and Essex are 126 for 5.  Wheater comes in to bat. Lawrence continues to look dangerous to me . Roland- Jones  is bowling well.  Murtagh is now bowling from the Nursery End,  and Franklin comes on to  bowl at the Pavilion End. There follows some decent shots and also some playing and missing. After a slow start, Wheater is beginning to play some shots and this partnership begins to go from strength to strength. Ollie Rayner comes into the attack from the Nursery End.

Lunch arrives and Essex are 213 for 5. A steady mornings play, 83 runs have been added for the loss of just 1 wicket.

We need an  early break through. Murtagh and Finn are now bowling. Lawrence swiftly followed by Wheater arrive at 50 and Essex are 222 for 5. We really need to break this stubborn and rather good partnership. Ollie Rayner comes on to bowl and not for the first time Ollie breaks a partnership. A rather careless shot from Wheater and he is out for 64 very useful runs caught Eskinazi bowled Rayner and Essex are 253 for 6. I should mention that we are -1 which is more than acceptable. Ten Doeschate is now batting. There are more appeals but the umpires remain unmoved. Then another loud appeal for LBW and this time the umpire raises his finger. Ten Doeschate out LBW bowled Murtagh for 20 and Essex are 282 for 7 and we are in a very strong position. Finn now replaces Roland- Jones. Then another wicket . Harmer caught at mid off by Eskinazi bowled Finn who is now bowling well and Essex are struggling at 285 for 8. Then the big wicket Lawrence LBW bowled Finn for a decent 75 and Essex are 288 for 9.

At this point we are -2 which is still okay I think. Finally Finn demolishes  Wagner’s stumps and Essex are all out for 295 and it is Tea.

Now the mystery. Essex are , if my maths is correct, 212 behind. If one can believe the weather reports, Monday afternoon does not look great. Surely we will enforce the follow on. However, it quickly becomes apparent this will not be the case. At this point I must make clear that the people making this decision have a far greater knowledge of cricket than I do and it is also the case that many teams no longer enforce the follow on.

We carry on.  Gubbins and Robson come out to bat and our second innings commences. Both batsmen start to dominate the bowling and we start to amass runs rather quickly.  Essex switch their bowlers around,  but our two batsmen continue to dominate and play some great attacking shots. Robson and Gubbins both go past 50. This is now becoming very good to watch. Eventually Robson tries one big shot too many and is caught in the deep by Lawrence off the bowling of Harmer for a very entertaining 77 and we are 146 for 1. Gubbins then quickly follows caught in the covers by Bopara bowler Harman for an entertaining 64.

There is now some more comments by people around me, should we declare and if so when? We carry on batting. Eskinazi who has come in starts to play some lovely attacking shots and dominates the bowling, eventually he is out for a very entertaining 62.

We declare at 239 for 3  and are 451 ahead . Just 6 overs are left in the day which Essex negotiate without losing a wicket and finish the day 19 for 0.

This was a very entertaining day. However two big questions remain. Should we have enforced the follow on,  and when we did not did we bat too long in our second innings?? The weather forecast suggests some rain from about tea time tomorrow. Hopefully, by then we have bowled Essex out which we are more than capable of doing and we record an important victory.