Cause to celebrate

By London Leprechaun
September 12 2015

London Leprecahun gives us a remote view of another 4th day spectacular from Middlesex, helped by a Yorkshire batting collapse worthy of middleexbattingcollapse.com and TRJ back on fire. A great last day at Lord's for those who were there and for those who weren't excellent listening. 

I was very tempted to go today but as I have missed all our last day spectacular wins this season, and I was not over confident about public transport I decided to go for the radio version; helped by it being on proper radio for most of the day.

First news is that declaration has been made overnight.  Sounds like a cloudy morning. Maybe we can reverse first day conditions.  And of course there is always that pesky you know what, which starts of negative – of course.

Commentators say that we declared before the start because the bowlers were keen to bowl; and Murts and TRJ are bowling well by the sound of it, but there don’t seem to be the overhead conditions of the first day. There is no obvious early trouble for Yorkshire. Hard to know at this stage if they are going to go for it. The commentators don’t seem to know for sure either, and their conversations drifts about with stories of commentating on the mascots race and innuendo laden comments about approaching maidens.

It takes the advent of James Harris to get the first wicket. Yorkshire don’t have a great total as of now – floodgates maybe? That would be nice. And just maybe as Harry unbalances Balance for his second duck.  Shades of Durham? However, household chores clearly don’t count as wicket walks and Yorkshire begin to sound reasonably comfortable. As an aside, KH mentions that the overrate has gone to minus 3 – in just over an hour!! Aargh

By 12.15 Dex is on – and nearly gets a wicket straightaway.  Who will be our next Dext? I managed to time a shopping trip with the lunch interval. Dipping in and out of reception I missed most of the Yorkshire love in (fair enough given the circumstances); but Dex gets a wicket while I am waiting for my lift home.  And just as I am get all the shopping in Malan takes a good catch and the spectacular fourth day finish is on again. We could do with winning this to keep Notts out of troubling us for second.  But Yorkshire don’t want to lose their winning record and they are probably good enough to dig in if they decide to give up the run chase.

Quite a lot of the commentary today has been concentrating on the comparison between Yorkshire and the rest of Division 1, with consistency and depth being the main thing setting Yorkshire apart.  We have depth I think, consistency is a big issue. Which is were the genuine all rounder comes in. Could that be TRJ?

Sounds like we are bowling really well and not too long after the fifth wicket goes – at Nelson.  This is looking good for a statement for next season, though we mustn’t forget that last wicket partnership on Thursday. No mention of you know what on the commentary.All of a sudden TRJ is on yet another hat trick as Hodd goes first ball.  I missed seeing his last one and a  hat trick on Nelson would be good!  But Middlebrook fends him off.

 The good thing about this being on proper radio is that I can have the commentary on everywhere so the rest of the Yorkshire collapse it easy to follow. However even with 8 wickets down have to remember what happened in the first innings. Though TRJ is on fire now by the sound of it.

Checking emails leads to the 9^th wicket; now let’s hope that the last wicket does not keep us occupied too long as the Yorkshire commentators hand over to our Kevin Hand to hopefully finish of the Lord’s season in style.  Though a little resistance means I have to resort to the computer commentary to hear the final TRJ wicket.  Yet another 4^th day spectacular and even if Yorkshire were off the gas this was a turnaround and a half!  We are not that far away from Yorkshire and we will end the season with a lot of its and buts around other matches, including Headingly.

And Don the wizard has done his magic.