Not Somerset's favourite

By Dasher Denning
June 19 2014

Our friend from Somerset gives us his view on last night's T20 match. Not the best day for Somerset on and off the pitch as we hear as much about attempts to storm the Oval pavilion as the match. Good to get some perspective on how a win for us looks to the other side! Glad you got some decent beer eventually!

A week ago this was looking like the wooden spoon game in the T20 Blast South Group. To use an Americanism that the marketing people in English cricket seem to love so much, Middlesex were 0 and 6 and Somerset were 1 and 3 and both sets of supporters could be heard loudly saying “it’s the four day game that counts”. But two wins for Somerset over the weekend had taken the Wyverns to the heady heights of sixth as the two teams headed to, erm, The Oval.

A few weeks ago I spent some considerable time on Google without success trying to find out exactly why this fixture was being played south of the river. In the end, after trawling through pages and pages of threads on MTWD, I think I came to the conclusion that it was because they were originally down to play it at Richmond but the venue wasn’t deemed big enough. But then that theory bit the dust this morning when I read the BBC match report which said that it was played at The Oval because they wanted to play it under floodlights but they weren’t allowed to use the Lord’s floodlights. Whatever the reason, I found it a real shame that Middlesex didn’t use one of their home grounds for the game. While six losses may have been a factor, the size of the crowd really didn’t merit moving it down there (I’d imagine it was a loss maker for the club) and there was just a really sterile atmosphere despite the installation of the some big flame thrower things that went off with every six and four.

My mood wasn’t helped by a couple of other things. First, the Hanover Arms. Is there a worse pub on the county circuit? One pint of some awful flat washing up liquid that was allegedly Doombar was enough to make out party head into the ground early. We thought we’d head into the Pavilion as the beer selection was better and they’d have the football on. We had one Somerset membership, one Middlesex membership and a Gloucestershire one between four of us, which we thought would be enough given it was a neutral venue. The steward on one of the entrances decided he had to ask his boss if Somerset and Gloucestershire memberships were allowed, so we gave up on that and tried the main entrance. We had the same issues there but the man on the door wasn’t as officious as the other one and let us in. All good it seemed, Dark Star Hophead was on along with a local Surrey CCC ale (why don’t more clubs do this?) and the Australia-Holland match was entertaining. Then I got a text from a mate who was being refused entry despite having his Somerset membership on him. So I went down with my Somerset membership to see what the issue was and was told by some jobsworth that Somerset fans weren’t allowed in the Pavilion. There then followed a forthright exchange of views which included me pointing out that I had been in the Pavilion for the best part of an hour and also that cricket clubs always let away members into their Pavilion (not strictly true but given the Pavilion was far from busy I thought it was a fair one). It ended with me telling my mate to just walk in, at which point the jobsworth said he’d have me arrested if my mate came in and “it’s all on cctv” (quite what “it” was I’m not so sure

Anyway, we all ended up in the Pavilion, I didn’t get nicked and we proceeded to try and watch the cricket at the same time as watching Spain going out of the World Cup. The pitch looked a bit underprepared to my “expert” eye and the Somerset batsmen obviously shared my view as we never really got any momentum going and stumbled along to 150-odd off our twenty overs. With regards to Middlesex, I came to the same conclusions that I always do when I watch them – Ravi Patel looks a really good prospect, James Harris isn’t a T20 bowler and Rayner’s action looks very suspicious.

Yes we did win

And so to the second innings. When Treeeeeeeeeeeee-go pinned dangerman Malan LBW for 0 in the first over and Morgan went cheaply I thought we had a competitive score. But then Denly and Higgins seemed to find it a completely different pitch to all those who had batted previously and the operatives in charge of the flame throwers had to really earn their corn. Middlesex coasted home and we departed to The Beehive just before the end. I’d imagine after six straight losses you MTWD people will have been singing “can we play here every week” but please don’t.

Ah well, it’s the four day game that counts….