Exile. Banishment. There are no polite words for it. We cannot play at Lord’s for several weeks because the ground is hosting four days of world cup matches during that time. This expatriation applies to real tennis players and cricketers alike.
And we love Lord’s. We’d like to sing the praises of the place, but…
…how can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
On the bright side, of course, we have other places to go and in truth they are not such strange lands. For realists, there is The Queen’s Club and Middlesex University. For Middlesex cricketers, there is Radlett and Merchant Taylor’s School (MTS), amongst other places.
Having enjoyed a super day at Radlett with Fran and Simon earlier in the exile period…
…Janie (aka Daisy) and I had hoped to arrange a similar day at MTS. But Fran and Simon had other commitments on the Sunday, while Janie couldn’t free up enough time on the Tuesday.
Luckily, I was able to get enough work done on the Monday to free up the Tuesday for cricket.
So I arranged a game of real tennis at Middlesex University in the morning, with a view to getting from The Burroughs to MTS soon after 11:00. Here is a very short clip depicting real tennis at Middlesex University – actually taken by Janie on the Radlett day:
I liaised with Fran and Simon, working out that I was due to arrive a few minutes ahead of them, so I wandered around and grabbed some excellent seats alongside the Middlesex diehards, such as Barmy Kev, Andy Biggs, Keith Roberts, along with several others.
By the time I arrived, Middlesex had already lost a couple more wickets and the position looked very precarious indeed. By the time Fran and Simon arrived, the position was looking even more precarious.
In that early part of the day, we all three thought we might well be about to witness a Middlesex loss and that we might not be around for too long. Nevertheless, Fran and I had both learnt our lesson ar Radlett and resolved to stroll around at regular intervals.
We set off for our first stroll around 12:30 and took a good 30 minutes to complete the circuit.
One of the wonderful things about outground cricket at Middlesex is that the players and club officials really do wander around and mingle with the spectators, giving the matches a festival feel.
We soon encountered Dawid Malan and James Keatley, gaining some interesting insight into Dawid’s perception of how many runs Middlesex might need to have a chance to defend a total (a lead of 160 to 180 he said).
A little further on, Steve Finn similarly suggested that a lead of 170 would be enough, although Sam Robson alongside him was more nuanced with his answer…
…as long as Gloucestershire don’t manage a big partnership or two.
But at that stage, thoughts of such a lead were still hope not expectation, with Middlesex 7-down, and the lead crawling up to, then just past, 100. By the end of our stroll and lunch the lead had crept up to around 140.
Fran and Simon were surprised at how cosy and friendly the atmosphere is, perhaps attributing it to my involvement with Middlesex. While that is the case to some extent, I have found the outground atmosphere relentlessly friendly since long before I was involved with the club.
Simon, who is in truth a Yorkshire fan, might especially enjoy this tale of Michael Vaughan and Greek tragedy from Southgate in 2006, reported on King Cricket under my nom de plume, Ged:
Putting ancient tales of Greek tragedy to one side, the mood at lunch amongst the Middlesex supporters was a real mixture of sanguine and resigned. As the afternoon went on, the clouds and the mood lifted to increasing brightness. With increased hope, of course, came some nerves.
Then when Middlesex were all out and had some 11 overs to bowl before tea, discussion of how many wickets we might “need” before tea to establish a foothold and to have a chance of completing the match that day. Two or three was the wisdom of the crowd. It looked as though we’d have to make do with two until the last ball before tea, which made three.
Tim Murtagh bowled beautifully that day and in so doing overtook Wayne Daniel’s record tally of wickets for Middlesex, which was a pretty impressive statistic to hear announced on the tannoy.
Richard Goatley and Angus Fraser held an impromptu members’ forum in the beer tent, at which they were apparently being bombarded with difficult questions about Middlesex’s tough start to the season. It was meant to be a tea interval thing but went on some time after that, during which time Middlesex continued to take wickets.
As one wag put it, there were some grumpy members in the beer tent complaining about Middlesex’s poor performance, while the team was turning around and looking like winning a tough match.
Richard Goatley is one of the world’s worst watchers of a cricket match when he has emotional skin in the game, so there was no consoling him with talk of 40/6…40/7 probably meaning that Middlesex was heading for a win.
In fact, Gloucestershire, in an echo of Middlesex’s innings, put on a bit of a rearguard at 7-down, so much so that the Middlesex regulars encouraged me and Fran to go for another long walk, as our previous walk had been so successful from a Middlesex point of view.
Don’t come back until Middlesex have taken another wicket…or two…
…was the message from the welcoming regulars.
A mini exile. But in any case, we were ready for another stroll and sure enough, we’d only got about 100 yards into our circuit when another wicket and then another fell.
When we got to the pavilion, at 9-down, I saw Angus sitting with his serious game face on.
Surely you can break a smile now, Gus?…
…I asked…
…not yet…
…snarled Gus, who then broke into that rare, full Gus smile.
Fran and I got back to our seats with the Gloucestershire final wicket pair holding on for grim death, but in truth the only remaining issue was whether they could survive the extra half hour or not.
Not. A splendid Middlesex win by the end of the day, having turned around a seemingly losing position an hour into Day Three.
Here is a link to the scorecard and other Cricinfo resources on the MTS match.
I normally write more about the conversations than the cricket, but the cricket and ground vibe was so special this day. In any case Fran asked to redact several of the conversations. The non-redacted topics of conversation included:
- Roy Hudd
- Rod Hull
- Barry Wood
- Benny Howell
- Benny Hill
- Merchant Taylors’ School
- cashew nuts
- New Zealand v India at Old Trafford
- rain in Manchester
- the possible death of the adverb.
It really had been a very exciting and enjoyable day amongst friends. What with the real tennis at Middlesex University and the Middlesex cricket win at MTS, I had conducted myself very Middlesexly indeed, I feel.