By Diamond
July 31 2006

Diamond sums up an excellent day of cricket at Lord's. Perhaps we shouldn't have let Durham get so close, but we got the result so let's celebrate for once. We're still in with a Pro40 chance if we can keep on winning. Journey dilemma.
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To use the TFL network or not to, with their “track record” of weekend services lately, I decided not to and took the car up to town. It might be dearer but at least I know I will get to the ground in time and be able to get home before dawn on Tuesday! As it was, it only took 20 minutes from Ealing to the side of the ground and parking was easy with plenty of space in Lodge Road.


Early doors.
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Having arrived early, 13.15hrs, I purchased my scorecard and made my way to the top tier of the Allen stand to settle in. No need to visit the bar, as having the car with me I had provided a couple of cans and some eats to last me the afternoon, these later starts are great you can eat lunch at home before going to the game and save a fortune! The boys were out going through fielding drills, not a bad idea after last Sunday's performance and I noticed young Mr Weekes taking part, that’s nice I thought giving him a bit of involvement in the day. Then the PA announced he was to be more involved than I thought; he was in the side in place of Ed Joyce, the only change to either side. Durham had won the toss and decided to field on a warm day with a brisk wind and high clouds. If we could get off to a flyer and then pin their top order down, we would be in with a chance, as the weather looked changeable and to choose to field did not seem a good call. The mowers were still running up and down, taking off any grass growth promoted by last night's rain in the area from a superbly green outfield.



Our go first.
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Ed0 and Weeksie open the batting and with the score on 7, yes you guessed it folks Ed0 lives up to his name, stroking one to Breese in the slips off of Gibson. So much for the flying start; the only thing flying round here was the duck back to the pavilion! Ace time, far too early for my liking and the first ball of the fifth over is despatched to the Tavern fence by him, the first boundary of the game.

“Big Andy” is in a flap by now. He has lost his sunglasses. I point out to the daft lad that they are on his nose and things calm down a bit till he claims to be hungry . This sees off most of my pack of Penguins from my cool box but then he is happy, just like a small child once it has been fed.

The seventh over delivered by Gibson was real fun , first ball to Ace=6,second=dot,third=Ace four,fourth =Ace four, shots to all parts of the ground , on completion of his over Mr Gibson’s displeasure at being mauled could be heard around the ground , hopefully not by those of junior years , not a happy bunny to say the least.

Lewis replaced him for the ninth over, no Morse for this Lewis (……), Ace taking a liking to his length and line and hitting him for two more fours.

The 50 came up off of 10.4 overs, Ace 31, Weeksie 17. Things proceeded to 74-1 off 15 overs in a quiet sort of way. On 78 Weeksie tried to launch Lewis (to Norwich?) only to see the ball land in the hands of Mustard. Good knock all the same and at 78-2 the platform was nearly built to launch an assault on a competitive score. JD then played all too short an innings, getting done by Lewis LBW for 18 by one that stayed straight and low, 113-3.

Nearly forgot to mention Ace’s 50! off of 59 balls with 1 six and 6 fours, silly me. Skipper comes in and he and Ace continue to build the innings, the run rate passing five by the 29th over. Scott playing lots of shots all round the wicket, a nice reverse sweep for four etc and in no time it seemed the 50 partnership was up. Lewis then dropped him on 39 from what can only be described as a smear shot, straight in from on high and thankfully straight through his hands, phew! Ace all the time is biffing the ball to the fences. Skipper is in brutal form and goes well beyond any one day form I have seen from him this year.

200 up off of 209 balls , Ace 93 , Skipper 46, someone pinch me! 50 up for Scott of a mere 37 balls with 6x4’s, quickly followed by Ace’s ton off 98 balls with 1 x 6 and 11 x 4’s. Superb knock, well built innings at a time when we could have been in deep trouble had he failed.

The run rate was by now 5.9 per over; good by any standard but the assault these two launched on the Durham bowling in the last ten overs put on over 100 runs and gave the bowlers a very good target to defend.

258-3 off 40 overs after a poor start (we were 14-1 in the sixth over) was an excellent display of batsmanship with Ace finishing 122 not out and Skipper 74 not out. Both were rightly applauded from the field.



Durham’s turn.
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The team huddle at the start of the Durham innings seemed pretty intense and as the skies clouded in further it would seem that we had got the better of the batting conditions after all, even after losing the toss. Silvers opened with a wide, followed by 6 dot balls. His second over really defied belief. First two balls were called wide, next one a no ball, the subsequent free hit being smashed into the stands for six, dot ball , dot ball (with a good LBW shout thrown in), dot ball, dot ball. Ten runs conceded off of the over.

Durham reached 50 off of 61 balls with no real scares except one very tough catching chance which Ed Smith didn’t quite get to.

The first breakthrough occurred when Ace took a super low catch off of Silvers to dismiss Muchall for 24, 59-1. This became 75-2 when Skipper surgically removed Gibsons leg stump. 81-3 when Jlow took a great catch coming in off the fence a long way to remove Steve's lesser known brother(Ben Harmison) for 4 off the bowling of JD. 86-4 when Benkenstein holes out to Ed running across from in front of the Allen stand almost to the pavilion steps for 3, again off of JD.

The rate required goes up to 8.5 per over and Durham reach 88-4 at the halfway mark. Maher having played well so far then attempts to reverse sweep JD and ends up with time to go full circle before seeing the ball lightly kiss the stumps and remove both bails, talk about too early on the shot , good bowling by JD to spot his intentions though. 99-5.

Spin from both ends pegged the scoring for a while till the batsmen decided they had to get on with it as the bad balls were not going to come and the ball was slow off the bat. Scott(99 Durham) launched Weeksie for a huge 6 into the Grandstand. With black clouds rolling in, the sky getting darker and behind the D/L Durham had to push on for any chance of a win. Breese smashed Weeksie into the Grandstand for 6, the ball lost for five minutes returned as umpire Holder got another out of the box of spares. Breese tried the very same shot next ball only to sky it into the hands of Silvers, yet another well taken catch. 150-6.

At the 30 over mark Durham were 152-6, Middlesex had been 153-3, the difference being their required rate was 10.7 per over by now. I knew it was too good to last , yes folks time for the Middlesex comedy fielding award , step forward Pepsi! On as a fielding sub he and Weeksie both went for a skier only for Weeksie to get nowhere near it and Pepsi to watch it drop over his head and inside the boundary. The "explanations" he gave to all within earshot must have been something else. I knew he was on but I thought it was for Compo. He is on the field, hang on where’s Skipper? Missing and obviously had been for most of the innings hence the heavy use of both spinners. Mystery time?

Durham by now are desperate to lower the run rate , shots flying into stands and the fence , batsmen rushing up and down like a pair of whippets. On 187 Mustard sowed the seeds of a thought that we could win this by holing out in front of the Tavern to Compo off Chad. 5 runs off the over and a partnership broken when 11 an over were required.

At 35 overs both sides were on 202,Durham 7 down, Middlesex only 3 down.

If the Comedy award goes to Pepsi then the catch of the day award has to go to Chad for the goalkeeper style catch he took to remove Thorp for 28 off of Jlow. Often catches are described as “ a salmon like leap” and this one would be the finest Scottish salmon if it were to be called thus. 224- 8. Try as they might and to their credit they did try the Durham tail found the ask too much and some tidy bowling from Jlow saw their innings finish on 245-8, 14 runs short of the mark.



A canny win.
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A good win by the team and our boat may well have come in but can someone please tell me where our skipper is? [Editor's note: see the match thread on the Message Board for the chat on this subject]. The 145 partnership he put on with Ace was the bedrock of the win and it shows what an unassuming guy he is in the field when I didn’t even realise he was missing for most of the Durham innings. I really hope he was knackered rather than injured because we need him with us in the coming weeks to pull us round.


Man of the Match Award.
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It is not often that a player will score 100 and not get the MoM award and yes folks this is not one of those occasions. Mentions in despatches for Skips 74, Weeksies opening offer, some fine fielding in general and much tidy bowling but on this occasion there is only one man of the match: Owais Shah , Ace by nickname, Ace by display today, step forward young man you did us proud.