waiting for play

By steelbacker
September 3 2009

We get a different kind of view as Northampton supporter Steelbacker reports from Wantage Road on the first days play. On a day when nearly half of the overs were lost to rain and bad light, young John Simpson scored a superb fifty on his first class debut. Hear all about it plus news on a red headed barmaid and what Rikki Wessels nickname is. Read on

Firstly I must declare an interest here; I am a Northants (and Kettering Town) fan and have been asked to do this report by my Uncle, known to you as comebackgatt. He was due to come up and watch some cricket with me, but he cried off calming “work pressure”, yeh right, it was because he could not face me taking the Michael out of him following our win at Lord’s a few weeks ago, a win may I add I predicted as we left the ground at the end of the three day.

Anyway, since our win at Lord’s things have gone well for us, currently in 4^th place 9 points behind second placed Essex, with a game in hand. After this we play Surrey away, then the big one at Chelmsford and finish off at home to Leicestershire. So this is a must win game, and I fancy our chances strongly, Middlesex have sent a young team minus their three England players and no Sam Robson who is injured, which is a great shame as I was looking forward to seeing him bat.

I arrived at the ground to find that the start was going to be delayed 45 mins because of a wet outfield, so wandered out the ground and had a coffee and croissant. On my return the umpires were coming out. Team news is that we have Nail O’Brien back from Ireland duty and Van Der Wath is fit, for Middlesex Kartick plays and Simpson makes his debut behind the stumps. The visitors won the toss and decided to bat, not sure I would have done but we shall see.

Nick Compton hits the first ball of the day for four but two balls later nicks van Der Wath to O’Brien, and its 4-1, then more trouble for the visitors when Housego on nine, edges the same bowler to “Blood” at second slip. Oh Blood is the nickname of Wessels. Its 21-2. We move on to 43-2 when the rain returns and everybody leaves the field and an early lunch is taken.

Had lunch at a local pub just round the corner from the ground, my usual haunt on home games and the fact that one of the barmaids is a red haired beauty called Elly is neither here or there. A couple of mates saw my notepad and asked what I was doing, when I told them they asked to tell everyone “thanks a bunch for handing victory to Essex a couple of weeks ago” I replied that they have sent their second eleven to make things even. 

Back to the cricket, and a useful stand between London and Malan. I, like many,  first saw Malan in his breathtaking 20/20 innings last season. He looked in good form today, happy to leave anything outside his off stump alone.  Van Der Wath bowled 12 overs straight off, a couple too many I thought and Monty got taken for 14 from two overs. That brought “Albert” Hall on, what a season he is having with bat and ball, and with his fifth delivery found the edge of London’s bat and Peters did the rest. Worse was to follow, in the next over Lucas, who has bowled very well since getting back in the team, finally tempted Malan and Blood took a sharp catch and Middlesex  were 97-4. It’s getting a bit dark again so will not be surprised if it rained again. As I said at the start I was a bit surprised that Udal elected to bat.

Young Simpson, on his debut, played and missed a bit at the start, but along with Dexter got Middx to 126-4 when the rain returned, early tea. During the break we listened with interest to events at Derby where Kent were 231-5, with Jones getting another ton. I don’t think anyone is going to catch Kent so we are hoping Derby will not pick up too many points from this match. Some doubt as whether we are going to see much more play today. 

Young Simpson has really impressed me on his debut, looking confident and a range of good stroke, one for the future maybe. He lost his partner Dexter with score on 148-5, out for 30 scoring pretty, swiftly including 7 fours. Simpson went through to his fifty, greeted with generous applause from the frankly meagre crowd. Simpson and Berg took the score past 200 to give the visitors their first batting point, but then Berg was run out totally unnecessarily for 18 , when going for a run that was not there, and to rub salt in the wound it was a throw from Daggett, not renowned for his fielding. That made it 202-6; Udal came out but shortly after the umpires were looking at their light meters and called a halt to proceedings.

 It has gone really gloomy, some people are heading home but I think I will hang around a bit longer. As it turned out that was that, play call off for the day at 205-6 from 50 overs. Typical September day really, play gets disjointed with so much coming and going, but two points in the bag which we should make three in the morning and the hope to get a decent first innings lead. Finally well played again young Simpson. Time for a quick pint then home before returning in the morning.