Not enough

By Dingy Bags
July 12 2010

Dingy Bags reports from Uxbridge as our hopes of reaching the quarters Finals of this season's T20 took another dive as bottom of the table Gloucs gain the double over Middle in this season's competition.

Middlesex pretty much had to win all of their last three games to progress in the T20 this season. We lost again today so we probably won’t.At least it was a bit more entertaining than against Hants, but only a bit and not once we were bowling.

Three changes from Saturday’s line-up saw O’Brien in for Berg (bruised toe), and Newman and Murtagh making way for Thompson and Finn. So Murtagh, who recently was saying how he was missing his mate Finn, now made way for him. Finn looked confused to be playing a game of cricket again – Gus had to explain patiently to him as to why the nets were being taken off the middle, what the object of a game of cricket was, etc.

A good collection of site members in front of the pavilion were even joined by Mr Coleman, making a rare outing to watch “The Devil’s Game”. We won the toss (again) and batted (again); Warner soon hit one up in the air (again) and retired to the underground dressing rooms to swear loudly and hit doors (again). Thompson hit a few meaty fours before he hit one to an enormous height and was caught by Kirby, so it was left to Ace and AC to steady the ship and keep the scoring going along, which is not easy.Still, 50-2 at the end of the powerplay was a bit better than Saturday and Malan was looking in better nick.

Ace departed after a rapid 27 to an excellent outfield catch by Hussain but Malan was really hitting his stride by now and he and Dex put 85 on in less than 8 overs. Dawid hit two sixes onto the road – or even the common – one onto the roof of the pavilion and one onto the bowling green. He also hit a couple of ordinary sixes as well. Dex was out to a catch at full stretch by Porterfield, just failing to hit a slower ball from Kirby for six. His 38 off 30 balls was an excellent supporting effort but, as it turned out, his dismissal was the turning point of the game. Henderson mishit a quick 10 but no one was able to help Malan at the backend of the innings.

At 177-4 after 18 overs we looked good for 200+ but we scored only 8 runs (for 4 wickets) in the last two.

Lower Pavilion was confident we had enough. Most of us would have shared this opinion, with three test bowlers to open up. But all three got hit all over Uxbridge. Finn might be stronger and better-conditioned but his two overs went for 30 and Ped wasn’t hugely better. Porterfield and Redmond had 78 on the board at the end of the powerplay and things never looked good after that.

Dex bowled a good spell and got a couple of wickets and when Tom Smith skillfully (or luckily, depends on your point of view) deflected a drive from Franklin onto the stumps to run out the dangerous Porterfield, they were 99-3 and we had a sniff.But the scoring had been so quick that there was time to re-build before Franklin hit hard and high to see them home. One curiosity – they were also 177-4 at the end of their 18th over, exactly as we were. But they cruised home, emphasising how the end of our innings had, in fact, cost us the game.

We batted a bit better than Saturday and we fielded a little better. We also bowled fewer short deliveries. But this is small comfort. I hope those who have paid money to go to the Rose Bowl enjoy the game – can we still make it?