Middlesex CCC
Kent well and truly Smudged
turned the tide
By Dingy Bags
June 25 2010
Dingy Bags reports from Lord's as Gilly's leads his team to victory in his last match for the Middle. It was a night of good captaincy, excellent catching and a five wicket haul for young Tom Smith. All in all an enjoyable night for all Middle fans. read on...
Mr Hunt produced the same strip yet again at HQ on Thursday night. Perhaps it showed. Both innings followed the same pattern: lots of runs at the start and then a slow down.
Ours was the more marked because we scored 52 runs off the first five overs and only 17 off the next five. In front of another good crowd, on another warm evening the Aussie openers cracked it all over the shop – and then the runs just stopped. In fact the runs stopped before any wickets fell but fall they did, regularly from the seventh over onwards. What was significant was that no one, all night, hit a six remotely straight. Most of the wickets fell as people tried to hit over long on/off. It seemed that, on that track, once the ball got a little soft, it was pretty hard to score freely.
Mahmood went for 16 runs off his first four deliveries, switched ends and bowled one over in the middle and the last two from the Pavilion End and went for only a further 11 runs off his remaining 20 balls. Perhaps there’s another reason that the runs dried: Beefy arrived late, missed all the fun at the start and caused a mid-innings slowdown. But perhaps not. It was Malan who saw us to a semi-decent total, the best six of the night carried the longest square boundary and went Winskywards into the Mound. (How close to you was that Jonathan?)
We had a long batting line up and Bergie provided late momentum with consecutive sixes off the debutant Coles (who did quite well otherwise) with sensible support from Josh Davey. You had to admire the skill of Mahmood as he bowled yorker after yorker to restrict us at the death, as he has done all over the world. The sight of so much dust coming up at the interval suggested that 154 wasn’t such a bad total – I said so to Beefy and Ken. So it proved.
The Kent openers started nearly as well as ours and had 37 up after their first five overs and then came the performance of the night. Key hit an early delivery from Tom Smith over extra for a clever four but there was turn aplenty and Tom mixed things up well (reports that he’s a leg spinner should be ignored). 5 wickets is a real achievement in T20.
Dex had an impressive spell as well and, with the pace off the ball, Kent fell behind the rate and wickets continued to fall. Our ground-fielding was awful – there were two instances of 4 overthrows in Ped’s first two overs and then he sprawled all round one on the boundary to give then an extra 2 runs. But we caught well. In fact, really well. Warner’s, at full pelt (and he is deceptively quick across the ground for a smallish guy) running across from long off, was excellent but the single most memorable moment of the night was Murt’s catch to get rid of Key. (The key moment in fact, unlocking the tail, opening up the game, etc, etc).
Murts seemed to circle a huge, spinning attempt at a six over long on and somehow came up with the ball. Murt’s celebrations are usually a little subdued; here he tossed the ball up and kicked it in delight. We kept our nerve and saw the game out. The fist pumping from Lower Pavilion got more and more confident (should he change his name to Lower Tavern, at least for the T20 games?) and the only mystery of the night was that Bergie didn’t bowl. At least that gave Josh Davey the chance to show that he can, at a brisk medium and with quite a few dot balls.
All in all a fun night and we are pushing for a quarter final place, as things stand.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:06:30:14:55:48 by comebackgatt.
I think talk of quarter-finals is a little premature at this stage, as so many teams still seem to be in contention. To be sure, we are one of those contenders.
Kent could have been contenders, but it ain't their year.
Click here to read why I sensationally sacrificed the big bucks of Chelsea for the adventure of Watford
(image on left not representative of how relative my support of Watford is to my support of Middlesex)
Yes, I tend to sit in The Lower Tavern for these games,perhaps I would be a little too loud for The Pavilion in 20/20.
I am always a little nervous when we get into a winning position in these games, because things can change so quickly,but as soon as Key went, I did start to feel confident.
I also agree with ypu about Murtagh's catch.That would have been the highlight of most games.A really great catch.
And I don't suppose it is telling tales out of school to suggest that the author's perspective for this match was also of the Lower Tavern variety.
The articles say that Friday's visit to Hove in the Twenty20 Cup will be his first appearace there since leaving Sussex, but actually he played in Middlesex's County Championship win there in May.
Click here to read why I sensationally sacrificed the big bucks of Chelsea for the adventure of Watford
(image on left not representative of how relative my support of Watford is to my support of Middlesex)
