Middlesex CCC
Lions Tame Panthers
50. But not quick enough
By Darren Gosling
June 25 2011
Darren Gosling reports on a game where he sets out hoping for no play and a refund. It ends up in a defeat and we hear an accurate assesment of the obvious negatives, but plenty of positives. Oh yeah Darren also witnessed a non cricket Middlesex victory and he may have seen Kimmy moonlighting.
4.45pm at Heathrow and the heavens have just spectacularly opened as I begin the hour and half journey across London to watch the Panthers – and with 6 defeats in 7 matches so far - I can hardly contain my excitement. I must admit, at this stage the prospect of a rained off game, a full refund and that rare thing in T20 this season for us (a point) are quite appealing.
Anyway so to the battle of the ‘Big Cats’ and I arrived in the nick of time, just as Crook was marking his run up. Seaxeman informed me that the Lions had won the toss and elected to bat. The Panthers made just one change (Murts for TRJ) from the team embarrassingly beaten by Kent in their most recent T20 defeat.
A good first over from Crook saw the score limited to just 3, but 18 runs from the second over from Ireland lifted the Lions to 21-0 – then Crook struck with the first wicket. Davies mistimed a pull shot and sent the ball skywards – Simpson did the rest.
The Lions then scored 30 off the next two overs off McLaren & Crook as Hamilton-Brown and Roy looked to cash in on the remaining power-play overs.
Smith bowled a tidy over to complete the power-play overs with the Lions well positioned on 55-1.
Dexter then entered the fray with immediate impact having Ham-Brown chop onto his stumps. In fact Dexter and Smith both bowled very tidy spells during the middle of the Lions innings, with overs 7-13 seeing the Lions score only 35-3 leaving the total on 90-4. Dexter finished with 4-0-18-3 picking up wickets in each of his first three overs (Roy & de Bruyn being the others) and Smith although wicketless only went for 20 off his 4 overs.
Gary Wilson then played his version of the Dilscoop - the Wilscoop – with devastating results, devastating to his stumps anyway !
Entering the final 4 overs the Lions were 111-5, with the Panthers at this stage looking to probably end up chasing somewhere in the region of 140ish.
Unfortunately Arafat who had just joined Maynard at the crease, had other ideas and the pair of them proceeded to take our ‘death bowlers’ apart adding another 52 off the last 4 overs, with Maynard completing his 50 off the penultimate delivery of the innings.
Maynard raises bat for 50
We where then ‘entertained’ by a two team mascot race during the break, with the North of the river versus the South of the River teams including mascots from Rugby and football teams. Pinky gloriously let the North to victory over the South.
Kimmy was that you inside the ‘Chirpy the Cockerel’ Tottenham outfit ?
Are you Kimmy in Disguise?
As these races are normally reserved for Finals Day I can only assume both the Lions & the Panthers upon realising there is no way they will be there this year decided to have their own race now. Anyway, back to the cricket…..well T20 to be precise….
Stirling & Dexter opened the innings with Ham-Brown and Middx old boy Nannes opening the bowling for the Lions, with the latter bowling three of his overs in the powerplay period. A steady start saw the Panthers roughly on par with the Lions after 3 overs, before Dexter nicked one behind off Meaker to leave the Panthers 29-1. Newman then joined Stirling and together they saw out the power-play overs with no further damage to the wickets column – the Panthers being 43-1 at this point (compared to the Lions 55-1).
As per the Lions innings, the use of the slower bowlers Ansari, Batty & Ham-Brown in the middle overs helped to put the brakes on the scoring though only one wicket fell in this period when Stirling was trapped lbw by Batty. At least Stirling managed to bat out all the power-play overs, something he hasn’t done on too many occasions during the campaign so far.
Malan and Newman batted steadily against the slower bowlers during this period (eventually putting on 87 for the 3rd wicket).
Arafat then returned in the 15th over and the Panthers and Newman in particular seemed to find scoring much easier of his quicker pace – Newman completing a deserved 50 off 46 balls. After the 17th over the Panthers were 129-2, eight ahead of the Lions at this point who had been 121-5. Arafat proving to be particularly expensive so far with fiigures of 3-0-37-0.
Unfortunately the death bowling overs are where I feel the Panthers lost this match.
Ham-Brown returned to complete his last miserly over finishing with figures of 4-0-14-0. Despite still being one ahead of the Lions with just two overs left, I couldn’t help but feel the match was slipping away now from the Panthers with 31 needed off 12 balls – six of which were going to be bowled by Nannes.
Nannes went for just 3 in the 19th over leaving the match practically over with 28 needed off the last over, needless to say we ultimately feel well short – even Arafat wasn’t going to go for that many.
Overall an improved performance from the Panthers, plus points were Stirling & Newman’s innings, Dexter and Smith’s bowling – just a shame we leaked 52 runs off the final 4 overs which meant we ended up chasing 20 odd runs too many.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011:06:26:11:34:01 by BarmierKev.
Kimmy didnt go,she told me she was working,but,didnt say she was 'chirpy'!
