Tag: Essex

Middlesex v Essex, Lord’s, 11 to 14 August 2009

I spent a fair bit of time at Lord’s days 1, 2 and 4 for this match.

Days 1 & 2 I was marking Payroll Giving Awards applications; I was chairing those awards back then. My habit was to take the file down to Lord’s – find a relatively quiet spot and do the marking in the open air.

Day 4 (the Friday) I was supposed to have meetings in the middle of the day, but I think they got shifted to/combined with my Thursday meetings.

I don’t recall a great deal about the cricket, other than Middlesex making a very generous declaration on Day 4 (I think we were a bit desperate for wins at that stage of the season), which Essex gobbled up with relative ease. I recall that Fletch was fuming about the declaration when I ran into him towards the end of the match.

Middlesex v Essex T20, Lord’s, Followed By Artemis Quartet, Wigmore Hall Lates, 26 June 2009

I often say that there are only two places remaining on earth where staff and stewards still call me “young man”: Lord’s and the Wigmore Hall.

So what better places to celebrate Janie’s birthday than both of those august institutions?

We’d probably booked the Wigmore Hall late night concert before we knew/realised that Middlesex were to play Essex in the T20 tournament at Lord’s that evening. Low marks to the cricket authorities for demographic matching for scheduling that fixture at that venue that night, but they probably won’t make that mistake again in a hurry.

Anyway, Charley “The Gent” Malloy was keen to see that fixture and suggested (once he knew it was Janie’s birthday and that we had a later evening engagement at “The Wig”), that we make that match a couples outing,  with Dot (Mrs Malloy) up for the idea of a T20 game and a picnic at Lord’s. So that’s what we did.

Cricket

Chas and Dot were able to get to Lord’s early, so they established a good spot at the front of the Tavern Stand for us. Their hopes and expectations for the match (as Essex supporters) were much higher than ours as Middlesex supporters. Essex had been doing well in the tournament that year, whereas Middlesex, despite being champions, had been consistently poor. So much so, I had written a scathing “futurology” MTWD match report of the Hampshire away match earlier in the week, before that match even took place.

But of course, as fate would have it, Middlesex played a rare decent match and spoiled Chas and Dot’s fun a bit:

Here is a link to the scorecard.

But it clearly only spoiled their fun a bit, as Chas said in a note the following Monday:

That was a super evening last Friday at Lords with all of us there; it was an absolute delight, although I suspect that the loss by Essex cost them dearly!

Music

The Wigmore Late concert was a real treat for Janie; she loves a bit of Piazzolla and this was a concert full of the stuff.

Here is a link to an interesting article from The Telegraph explaining why this quartet likes playing Piazzolla.

Dying for a Piazzolla?

It was a lovely concert.

It had been a long evening; I recall us going back to the flat feeling very tired but also very happy.

2008 Twenty20 Cup Finals Day, Observed From Sandall Close, 26 July 2008

I remember everything, I remember nothing. In some ways, the senses were heightened, in other ways, numbed.

Cup finals day comprises two semi-finals and a final.

This link, to the Wikipedia entry for the day, sets out decent reviews of the two semi-finals.

Before looking at that piece, I couldn’t have told you that the Kent v Essex game was the first of the semi-finals, but on reflection of course it was.

Daisy and I had played tennis that morning and I hunkered down with the TV soon after our return from Boston Manor.

For MTWD, I set up an interactive report, the idea being that those at the ground and those watching from home would chip in with comments that would eventually comprise a sort-of modern era report. It sort of worked for a while – here is a link – but soon descended into a comments thread.

Just in case anything ever happens to MTWD, I have scraped the piece to Ogblog – only click the link below if the link above doesn’t work:

Middlesex till we die – Twenty20 Semi-Finals Interactive Report

In those days my set up at Sandall Close was a bit rudimentary – Daisy’s dapper Sony VAIO with a plug in thingie to her NTL doodah – or was it already called Virgin by then? Anyway, it was trailing wires and a bit Heath Robinson-like.

The semi-final went Middlesex’s way in a fairly convincing fashion. Daisy and I found that hard to believe, but excitedly realised that we had a final on our hands.

I vaguely remember texting Ed Smith between the matches, which was not a very good idea. I have no recollection of what Daisy and I ate, nor when we ate it, but I’m pretty sure we ate.

The final was a very exciting affair. Here is the Cricinfo scorecard.

I think I watched most of the final in the bedroom and I clearly recall Daisy being unable to watch towards the end of the match.

The agony of the close finish soon switched to untrammelled joy at the tournament victory. The comments on that “semi-final interactive report”, which in the end covered comments on the whole day, summarise many of the MTWD sentiments.

Our MTWD match reporter for the day was Daria, who wrote a really excellent piece which we published on the Monday – click here.

What a day. It’s weird that such a day yields so few new insights, but I suppose the reactions/sensations at the time, encapsulated in the MTWD links above, really do tell the story.

 

A Works Outing To Middlesex v Essex T20 at Lord’s, 12 June 2008

With many thanks to Charles Bartlett for this picture

After all the excitement of the previous evening’s match, gleaned via internet radio and reported on in near real-time on MTWD – click here… 

…a hefty day’s work, if my appointments diary is to be believed, followed by an informal works outing to the Middlesex v Essex game at Lord’s. No peace for the wicked.

Actually I look pretty bright-eyed and bushy tailed (well, the former at least) in the above photo, given the circumstances of the preceding two or three days.

This evening wasn’t quite in the style of the informal works outings that evolved for T20 matches in subsequent years, but I can see from the e-mail trail that Jez Horne mostly organised the event and that the “10 of us” who eventually showed up included Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett and Nick “The Boy Malloy” Bartlett, as well as Mark Yeandle (see picture), perhaps some other Z/Yen folk and some of Jez’s old friends from school.

Perhaps Jez, Mark, Charles and/or Nick will fill in some more details.

I remember it being a fun evening; especially so for those of us who support Middlesex, because Middlesex won the match.

Here is the scorecard – click here.

In truth, Essex never really got going.

I recall there was some edgy business over Ed Smith’s injury and his request for a runner – in the end that injury proved to be career-ending for Ed Smith; those of us who saw his innings that evening saw his last representative appearance for a first class side. But of course no-one knew the severity at the time.

Meanwhile MTWD had found a match reporter for the evening thank goodness – a young fellow known as johnnyboy – here’s a link to his report.

Update: I have just found the following e-mail from Chas, which suggests that his sense of humour did not extend quite as far as MTWD match reports – his response after I sent him the above link on the Friday:

Oh, so very droll!

I am ok with every thing other than the partisan match reports, much as I appreciate match reports with Middlesex winning, there must be many, many more that Essex were victorious e.g. the county match when Essex won victory from the jaws of defeat, just a few day’s ago.

The match reports that interest me the most (as you well know) are the tuffty/tcs, the TCS/Zyen along with the visits to Lords my myself, Geoff and big Jeff, so behave.

Charles

Whoever uploaded that match report did so at 4:35 the next morning. I’m going to guess that was me. No peace for the wicked. Oh dear, I’m repeating myself; time to stop.

Middlesex v Essex T20, Ravaged By Ravi, A 2007 MTWD “Lost Masterpiece”, 6 July 2007

By 2007 I was one of the small band of Middlesex Till We Die (MTWD) website editors and moderators. I especially liked the editorial side of things and enjoyed writing slightly left-field match reports.

In theory, every editorial piece ever written on MTWD remains live on the site, if you can be bothered to trawl the archive and/or know which key words to Google.  Except that, tragically, a swathe of 2007 match reports was lost in a Sportnetwork incident that was never properly explained.   I refer to those pieces as “the lost masterpieces”.  In truth, at least one of those 2007 reports is a fine piece of juvenilia by a then student, now award-winning journalist.

Except, of course, that my own scribblings never die, they simply get backed up in infeasibly strange places – such as the archive pit of my main computer.  (Indeed several other pieces, including the above mentioned juvenilia, have been preserved in their final but unpublished format).

So I am able to revive my report of the wonderful evening Janie and I (naturally in the guise of Daisy and Ged) spent with some close friends, also appearing under assumed names.

In scorecard terms, this is the match we saw that evening – click here.

As I cannot link to MTWD for this lost masterpiece, here it is restored/reproduced verbatim below.  Some connoisseurs of the “Vaughanian third person” will appreciate several references to myself as “Ged”.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Ravaged by Ravi, Bopped By Bopara

  

Ged Ladd reports on the Twenty20 betwixt Middlesex and Essex at Lord’s.  Daisy was there, so it had to be a final over nail-biter finish.  Meet Ged and Daisy’s friends from Essex, John-Boy and Maddja, plus their delightful daughters.  The match twisted, the match turned, the result was not what Ged and Daisy wanted, but it was a good match, it didn’t rain and a fun evening out was had by all.

 

In early

Daisy and I both quit work a little early to be sure of getting good seats for our whole entourage, which includes two small girls tonight.  Quitting work a little early was not as easy as it looked.  I was seeing a client in Whitehall, unaware of tube problems, the impending Tour de France (some navigational problems there, or have the Normans invaded us again?) and finally a “gas leak” leading to Notting Hill Gate being cordoned off.  Suffice it to say that I got home much later than expected and that I shall be doing an hour or more of work as well as writing this report at sparrowfart on Saturday!

 

Meet the family.  We’ll start with my very good friend from Essex, John-Boy, whom I have known since we started University at 18.  Then there’s his lovely wife, Maddja.  John-Boy and Maddja were childhood sweethearts on those Essex/Hertfordshire borders – a rare thing indeed for a relationship to survive while John-Boy was away at University for 5 years.  Especially hanging around with ne’er-do-wells like Ged.  Maddja’s mother’s family are of Eastern-European origin shrouded in history, mystery and stories that would make a fascinating mini-series for the BBC.  John-Boy and Maddja have two delightful daughters, Bela and Lugosi, now 11 and 8, who loved the Twenty20 at Southgate two years ago so much that they were still talking about it when we went to their house for dinner.  We simply had to set this evening up and so we did.

 

So, Daisy and Ged somehow manage to get to the ground by about 16:45 and have no difficulty securing seats right at the front of the Tavern Stand, where we think the little ones will have a good view.  John-Boy phones to explain that they are all stuck in various parts of East London and town, trying to get some form of public transport to get to the ground.  Ged estimates that they’ll arrive 45 minutes to an hour late.

 

A pathetic start

Middlesex then did their best to ensure that my good friends got to see no cricket at all.  Wickets fell at horribly regular intervals.  5/2.  31/5.  50/7.  If you want details, go see the scorecard.  It was clear that this was not an easy wicket on which to time your shots.  Daisy asked me at the start “what’s a decent Twenty20 score at Lord’s?” and I replied 160.  Soon after the start I suggested that 140 might be a decent enough score on that particular pitch.

 

With the score on 50/7 and Ged genuinely thinking that his friends might not even get to see any cricket, our mood was not great, despite the fact that we had started tucking in to the picnic (well, neither of us had had any lunch) and also some rather jolly pink wine to go with the Middlesex pink theme.

 

At 55/7 John-Boy phoned.  “We’re here.  The girls are in the loo but we’ll be with you in a jiffy.  What’s the score?”  “Middlesex are having a shocker,” I said, “55/7”.  “I don’t think I heard that right”, said John, “that sounded like seven”.  “Seven”.  “Blimey!”

 

Middlesex revive

So, our dear friends from Essex, John-Boy, Maddja, Bela and Lugosi arrive and at the same time Middlesex revive.  They are in very good spirits for people who have spent hours fighting their way across London and we all hunker down to our picnic and watch the show.

 

Murtagh and Keegan in particular show what can be done on this wicket once the batsman is in.  Both found it hard to time the ball at first, but once set the runs come quite easily and their bowlers find it hard.   Both of the Essex overseas bowlers, Bichel and Kaneria, go for plenty of runs.  A late flurry unperturbed by the risk of being all out gets Middlesex to 126.

 

We have a game on our hands.

 

John-Boy and Ged are reminded of the Southgate fixture 3 or 4 years ago, when Essex were rolled for not many.  Middlesex cruised to the total.  Would this one be a cruise or was 126 competitive?  Ged suspected “low end of competitive” and mused “Middlesex have bowled better than they have batted so far this season”.

 

Essex start slowly

Middlesex bowled well and Essex were no more able to use the first 6 overs than Middlesex.  They even took almost as many balls to reach 50 as Middlesex (over 60 balls in each case), but they kept wickets in hand and that proved to be vital.

 

Whilst Flower was blooming I kept saying to JohnBoy “if we get Flower now I think you’re in trouble”.  Then, once he had gone, the Ged mantra changed to “if we get Bopara now I think you’re in trouble” but that vital wicket never came.

 

Meanwhile Bela and Lugosi were on their best behaviour despite not being allowed to run all over the park during the interval and having been told in no uncertain terms that running around that particular park after the game was also prohibited at Lord’s.  However, Ged had a cunning plan for after the match, based on his trusty “run around the park tennis ball” and the Coronation Gardens.

 

Shrink that target

Maddja, who is an eminent psycho-therapist, was meanwhile busy telling Daisy about her latest therapeutic technique, a conversation so bizarre it is simply beyond parody.

 

And talking of shrinking, the target was getting lower and the score converging on that oh so helpful Duckworth-Lewis par score which gives you a very good idea who is on top and who isn’t, even when the skies are blue.

 

Rymps is not bowling well, and Ged muses that we have to find a couple of overs from somewhere (if not Rymps, who) and those overs will be targeted.

 

Murali Kartik meanwhile has bowled absolutely beautifully – Scotty is right back in the swing of things with “quick as a flash” stumpings.  Also off Kartik’s bowling Chad Keegan takes one of the best outfield catches you will ever see – he’s back in leaping salmon mode is Chad and let’s all hope he stays there.  And then, when Kartik comes back fro his final over, he also cleans up Ryan ten Doeschate and Ged realises that we might be back in the hunt if we can somehow hide those goat overs and/or somehow get rid of Ravi Bopara.

 

But it wasn’t to be.  With 11 needed off the last over, we had to prevent the boundaries and the one really poor ball Murtagh bowled at the death went for a heartbreaking six.  It was all over bar the shouting then.  JohnBoy and Ged had been trading clichés all evening.  (JohnBoy is a Leyton Orient man normally).  Ged described Chad’s catch as “worth the entry money alone” (as indeed was Murali Kartik’s spell).  With the six, it was “all over bar the shouting” and once it was really all over Ged was “gutted”.

 

Coronation Time

We get to the Coronation Garden to find a huge queue of kids.  Do you have to queue to throw a ball around the garden I mused, but soon realised that the queue was for autographs and a whole row of tables and chairs have been set up for the players to sign stuff for the kids.  I’d never seen this ritual before and was actually very impressed that the players spend so much time after the game doing that.  The queue looked almost endless.

 

JohnBoy, Lugosi and I start off with some catching practice while the others go off to the loo.  Then we all play a “piggy-in-the-middle”/”tag team” game which was great fun.  We rarely collide with the backs of the players who are too busy signing to care or even notice.

 

This is cricket for all the family as it is meant to be.  Of course I’m disappointed that we didn’t qualify – especially as we came so close in this match – and especially as the other results did go our way sufficiently that we would have qualified had we won.  But you can’t quibble with played 5 lost 3 didn’t qualify.  And you can’t quibble with the fact that we almost snatched victory from the jaws of defeat tonight and that some of our players were just excellent.  And you can’t quibble with that row of players from both sides, making the kids happy – they were still signing away once we had exhausted ourselves with our silly game and were trudging home into the night.

 

Middlebrook Mauls Middlesex, “MTWD Lost Masterpiece”, Middlesex v Essex at Lord’s, Day One, 15 June 2007

The background to the phenomenon of MTWD “lost masterpieces” is explained in this link – click here. In short, Sportnetwork permanently lost a swathe of published features from 2007.

But fear not; I tend to keep everything. So the following report, a visit to Lord’s with Charles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett, is available here for all to see.

I can think of at least two people who should still find this report interesting and amusing.

Middlebrook Mauls Middlesex

 

Ged Ladd reports on day one of the CC game against Essex at Lord’s.  Ged’s guest, Charley “The Gent” Malloy, returns for more cricket this year.  Charley, who last year was Durham to the core by the end of that day, turns out to be the quintessential Essex boy by the end of this day.   But the worst performance was the weather forecaster – the only real shower was some of the afternoon bowling.

 

Fashionably Late, Again

At 10:10 Ged receives a text from his guest, Charley “The Gent” Malloy, stating that he as at Newbury Park tube but still hopes to get to Lord’s for the start of play.  Some hope, thinks Ged, who sets off 5 minutes later, as planned, picnic in hand.

Ged arrives in time for the start of play and decides to go to the Upper Allen for a short time to watch while waiting for Charley.  Ged bumps in to Gerry the Bookseller up there, who gets very excited at the thought that Charley is coming, as there’s always a chance of book business when Charley is around.

Charley arrives surprisingly quickly, before 11:15, so he and Ged decamp to the Pavilion to enjoy some “behind the bowler’s arm” stuff.   From there, Silverwood’s LBWs looked pretty good to us – indeed Pettini could easily have gone LBW a couple of balls before he actually did go.

There was just a smidgeon of swing and the constant fall of wickets seemed odd given the flatness of the pitch.  Silvers and Vaas bowled well, as did Murtagh before he pulled up.

I saw that Murtagh injury as a really ominous sign, even while the wickets were falling, but daren’t mention it to Charley who was weakening his pint of Pedigree by crying into it.  Charley tried to remind me that he was a Durham man really, but I don’t fall for that stuff any more.  He consoles himself with some sausages and sausage rolls as nibbles – very nice with the Pedi.

Everything went right for Middlesex in the morning.  Ed Smith must have juggled Foster three or four times before holding on to the slip chance, for example.

Five down at lunch – what a great start for Middlesex.  We’re told that Chester-Le-Street is rained off for the day.

 

Luncheon

We take luncheon in the Coronation Gardens.  Pastrami and Swiss rolls washed down with a nice South African red.  We watch some youngsters playing cricket on the lawn – as usual Charley can hardly hold himself back from joining in.   Eventually the ball comes my way, so I indicate that I’d like to bowl it back.  I bowl a piercing Yorker at the lad who digs it out very well.  “Oh”, says the school master (straight from central casting in look and voice), “would you mind bowling him another?”  Naturally I oblige; another Yorker, another good safe defensive shot.  Charley looks well left out.  “May my friend have a go?” I ask.  “Of course,” says the school master.  So Charley takes the heavy-rubber practice ball and bowls a bouncer, which the young batsman leaves to sail a couple of inches past his nose.  “That’s what I was telling you about Andy Roberts” says the schoolmaster, “fiendish bouncers he bowled”.  How can you bowl a bouncer at a kid like that?  Charley’s problem is that he gets overexcited very easily, where cricket is concerned at least.

 

Lovely afternoon weatherwise

Given the weather forecast, and the fact it was clouding over, we thought we’d be lucky to see much cricket after lunch.  But the tiny shower soon cleared and Middlesex took a quick wicket after lunch.  Bichel joined Middlebrook and there they stayed for what seemed like ever.

We went to the bowlers bar and got chatting with some friends of mine – some more recent Lord’s acquaintances, some old friends from years gone by.  We drank, we watched a bit, we wandered round to the Upper Edrich, we wandered round to the Mound Stand.  We watched.  We ate some more (smoked salmon rolls, ginger biscuits).

Charley, of course, became increasingly Essex as the day went on and as the game turned Essex’s way.  Indeed, by the end he was telling me tales of bravery walking through Romford Estates at 3.00 a.m. or some such.  I wasn’t really listening.

Bichel holed out as soon as he reached his well-deserved 100.

The new ball did nothing – indeed Kartik and Joyce were bowling with it by the close of play.  Joyce had a big caught behind shout turned down.

 

So What Went Wrong for Middlesex?

Losing Murtagh right at the start was a huge blow.  If only we could have finished Essex off when we had them on the ropes, but now this match looks like a tough one, unless we can post a monster first innings score.  Frankly, there seems to be nothing in the wicket so perhaps that monster score is possible.

Rymps’ bowling looked well below par to me.  Silvers, Vaas and Kartik all bowled well but three main bowlers ain’t enough.  Kartik in particular I thought deserved more luck.  Ben Scott looked woefully out of sorts behind the stumps.  Most of the fielding was energetic and fine – the odd lapse but there usually is when in the field all day.

And you have to hand it to Middlebook, Bichel and latterly Tudor who batted well and made the most of the circumstances.

And of course the inspired captaincy of Pettini, not declaring on 97/6.

As always, of course, I still enjoyed my day at Lord’s.  As I always say on these occasions, I cannot spend a day watching 1st class cricket and not enjoy it.  And of course, as always, Charley “The Gent” and I have developed a cunning master plan for winning our “UnPro 40” match this year.  Our plot last year was so successful (we won at a canter) we actually need an even more cunning plan this year to ensure that we win, but only just.  Similarly, I don’t mind if Middlesex merely scrape a win out of this match now!  Indeed, a 12 point draw would be fine from here.

If by any chance anyone is still reading and wishes to see the scorecard from this match, here is a link to that very card.