Comes back to haunt us

By Fozzie
July 8 2011

Fozzie gives an excellent account of another 20/20 defeat for Middlesex. For those not at game and who missed TV coverage all the twists and turns are revealed. For those who saw the game you may wish to read this if you are a glutton for further punishment.

On my way to the match I remembered a pleasant little film about American tourists in Europe that I saw many years ago, called If It’s Tuesday This Must Be Belgium.  And it struck me that if it’s Thursday this must be yet another T20 match at Lords.  The difference is that whereas the tourists’ magical mystery tour only lasted a week, ours seems to have dragged on forever.  It was genuinely surprising to check the fixture list and see that our first T20 home game was a mere four weeks ago.  I’m sure I’ve aged more than that over the same period.

But putting such gloomy thoughts aside, there are some positives to report from our match against Surrey Lions.  Despite the early rain, the weather stayed fine throughout, and there was a big crowd of some 16,000 and a good atmosphere.  It was a pretty entertaining game, and even though it took a long time to catch fire as a contest, there was even some excitement and cheering from Panthers supporters in the final over – and that hasn’t happened too often this season.  Overall, though, I realised as the match went on just how low my expectations have become when it comes to Middlesex and T20.

Pessimistically fearing rain (though the weather has been the least of our problems), I sat in the lower Warner Stand with a couple of Surrey supporters. Rory Hamilton-Brown won the toss for Surrey and chose to bat.  Incidentally, wasn’t Surrey’s mascot formerly called Rory?  Presumably he did such a good job he was promoted to skipper.

Stephen Crook’s opening over produced 3 wides but not, sadly, its customary wicket.  Once Finn was replaced Roy and Davies (coming into this match on the back of 98* against Sussex) started tucking in to some fairly innocuous bowling from Crook and McLaren, whose opening over cost 19 runs.  By the end of the Power Play the score had reached an imposing 64-0, with once again some rather erratic fielding on display.  Roy reached his 50 with a straight six off Smith, and with the score on 92 after 9 overs Dex turned to Dalrymple. I observed severely that one should never trust a man who bowls in shades, but immediately had to retract my statement when Roy lofted his opening ball straight to Buck on the boundary.  In Jamie’s next over Stephen Davies lofted a cover drive to reach 50, off only 25 balls and with many elegant shots.   But he tried to repeat the shot next ball, and was stumped by Simmo.  Another wicket for Jamie – perhaps Gus should experiment with all the bowlers wearing shades?

At 114-2, and with two new batsmen at the crease, the Panthers rallied.  Smith had Rory H-B stumped, and although no further wickets fell the closing overs were reasonably tight (though I was surprised that Jamie didn’t bowl his full quota, given his impressive figures of 2-23 off 3 overs).  The innings closed on 182-3, with the Surrey supporters grumbling that their team had not fully capitalised on their excellent start.

The interval saw Tim Murtagh being named the official player of the month for June, in stark contrast to his showing in the MTWD poll.  In a further boost for morale Pinky the Panther won the mascot race by a street. Never mind that this is an obstacle race that would be dismissed as insufficiently demanding for a nursery school sports day – Pinky has been easily our most consistent T20 performer this season, and surely deserves a late nomination in our June poll. Personally, I’d place him narrowly behind Robbo and Vic (sorry, Tim).

Sadly, Pinky’s efforts did not have the desired motivational effect on his fellow Panthers. I outlined to the Surrey supporters the way our innings usually start: Sterlo will top-edge a towering skier and be caught in the first couple of overs, to be followed by a couple more early wickets, resulting in the remainder of the Power Play being used in shoring up the innings. And indeed, so it came to pass, with Dex and Jamie coming together at 24-3 in the third over.  The necessary consolidation duly took place, and though they were batting well the required run rate at the half-way stage was nearly 11.  The scoring duly accelerated, and Dex pulled Schofield for a big 6.  Demonstrating how half-glass-empty I’m becoming through this T20 campaign, I commented that he’d probably be stumped trying to repeat it, and sadly my forecasting this evening was on rather better form than is usually the case.

Simmo and Jamie kept the chase going, with more purposeful running between the wickets than has generally been the case.  Then in the 17^th over both were caught off high full-tosses (bordering on low beamers, perhaps) from our old boy Dirk Nannes.  In his following over McLaren edged an even higher full-toss for 4  (“Disgraceful delivery,” muttered the Surrey fans) before being yorked next ball, and Crook, removed of pinch-hitting duties for once, was immediately caught off a skier.  In fairness, it should be noted that Surrey’s catching in the deep was exemplary throughout.

While Dex and Jamie both did well and were unlucky not to get 50s, the bright light at the end of the innings was Robbo’s 18 from 11 balls, which gave us a sniff of the chance at the death.  With 20 needed from the final over, 9 came off the first three balls and suddenly a real turn-around seemed just possible;  but it was not to be, and a final score of 173-8 meant defeat by 9 runs.  The one-day game may not be the format best suited to Robbo, but he seems to me to be adapting fast and I hope he’ll be given a chance higher up the order.

So – 11 defeats from 13 matches, and still another 3 games to go. Let’s hope we can sign off our home games with a win on Sunday at Southgate, and then we can finally look forward to putting this interminable campaign to bed.