Janie (Daisy) and I witnessed the very end of this match, by diverting to Lord’s after playing tennis at Boston Manor on the Saturday morning and watching the denouement in our tennis clobber from the Upper Edrich.
It was the first time that either of us had seen the conclusion of a first class match live.
But there had been a saga to that match, not least the rather shameful first innings declaration by Justin Langer at 50/8 simply to deny Middlesex a bowling point. Such gaming of the points system is now prohibited.
Even more irritatingly, when I dug out the draft submissions (I was editing MTWD back then) there was no submission for Day Two – the day of the debacle.
…the three submissions were from Auntie Janet (Day One), Pistol Pete (Day Three) and Derek “The Diamond Ruled OK” Britton (Day Four). Seeing those submissions brought back bittersweet memories.
In particular, seeing my correspondence with and the submission from Diamond. I am writing this in the summer of 2018, having learnt a few weeks ago that, tragically, Diamond died suddenly and totally unexpectedly over the winter. He was always good company at the matches and Middlesex events. I also very much enjoyed his writing, which was folksy, unpretentious and direct. His Day Four piece for this match is not his best piece, but still it is unquestionably in Diamond’s voice.
…with permission from Barmy Kev, who is now the curator of MTWD and therefore technically the custodian of the lost masterpieces (even though I am the only person still to have the copies)…
…here are all three of the reports in their originally submitted form – I have not tried to re-edit them:
Middlesex v Somerset at Lord’s 30 May to 2 June 2007
MTWD “Lost Masterpieces” Reports
Day One
Published as “Mad Dog of an Englishwoman Goes To Lord’s”
by Auntie Janet
Mad dog of an Englishwoman goes to Lord’s when it is raining
(What I did to pass the time when it rained)
I knew that the weather was going to be ‘dodgy’ today, but hey I needed a live cricket fix. Surely we’ll get some cricket.
My trusty alarm first meowed at 4.30am (an improvement on 2.30am) and I told her to go away. She then woke me at 6.50am. Heck she shouldn’t be hungry, what with all the tuna she ate at my friends (yes she does house calls also) yesterday. Still I needed to get up and prepare my food so I got up and fed them.
I made myself a strong cup of coffee and set about preparing my ‘picnic’. Bother the cats have smelt the tuna and are under my feet…….. I suppose I’d better give them some before they trip me up. According to Sky sports news the weather is decidedly dodgy, but I’m still going – after all it can’t be worse than watching the rain fall at the Oval.
As the weather has turned cold, I had to get winter woollies out of storage and my winter coat (no ‘reporter’s t-shirt today).
I left home at 8.35am and it was drizzling, however by the time I got to the 253 bus stop the sun was trying to come out and the drizzle was definitely lighter in Camden town. When I got off the 274 near Lord’s the pavements were dry, but it had started raining by the time I got to Lord’s.
I ensconced myself in the Middlesex room after buying a programme. I’ll go outside when play starts. Hooray it has stopped raining and the ground staff have started to remove the covers and the umpires are out (definitely a hopeful sign).
The wicket is almost central albeit slightly to the ‘Mound stand’ side.
Drat why did I buy those caramelised cashews? I can’t stop eating them (they are rather moreish) and I would like them to last longer than one day.
On flicking through the programme I notice that last time we played Somerset at Lord’s in the CC was 1998 and we won by 211 runs. But Langer was playing for us then, however I feel that this is a good omen.
Good news the hover cover has been removed but it sounds decidedly unhealthy. The umpires have decided play can begin at 11.45am. Ed Smith won the toss and decided to field. Chris Wright is playing instead of Vaas (I later found out that Vaas still does not feel well). Question: Where is Chad?
It is grey and murky overhead and cold. Ball should swing nicely in these conditions. Now where’s my camera Silvers is bowling. He sends down 3 deliveries, they ALL beat Trescothick’s bat ……………. And the light is offered and Trescothick takes it. Someone from the Mound stand yelled ‘chicken’, but then it did start raining again.
Wot no Hover?
The ground staff certainly took their time putting covers on. They used tarpaulins and not the hover. I later found out that the hover had engine failure and had to be repaired. An early lunch was called. Trouble is that with no play my thoughts turned to food. I rooted in my bag and ate the bagel filled with mushroom salad and tuna/mayo. An experiment I found that I liked so I’ll be making this ‘mixture’ again. I then ate two chocolates. Mmm I’d better eat some salad and an apple. I found that I’d packed some cherry cakes (courtesy Sharon Bakery) and ate one of these before the apple making the apple taste extremely sour.
Very pretty we now have flashing lights on the scoreboard depicting rain.
Drat I thought I’d nearly finished the Telegraph Sudoku but have gone wrong. I’ll have to rub it out and start again (I do it in pencil). I did do the Sudoku at second attempt and started the ‘tough’ one inside the telegraph. I have brought my knitting but have wasted a lot of time doing the Sudoku.
It is brightening up but still raining and the umpires do come out from time to time. 3.15 pm and there is activity in the middle – the ground staff are brushing the water off the covers. I’ve wasted enough time on Sudoku, time to get the knitting out. At least with my hands occupied I can’t eat.
At 3.30pm I got a text from a friend in Hampshire saying it had stopped raining there, so would clear later at Lord’s. At 3.40pm an early tea is taken. It is still drizzling but getting brighter all the time, in fact it’s the brightest it’s been.
4.05pm and the umpires plus David Nash are out, and it looks like it has stopped raining and the covers are coming off.
There are now blue skies above and as there are damp patches play scheduled to start at 5.30pm.
As the Somerset players come back from the nets, Trescothick is limping quite badly, and Trego is mimicking him.
Now one or two wickets tonight would be nice! Silvers finished his first over and Trescothick finally managed to get bat to ball! Richo bowled from the Nursery end. In Silvers second over, on his 3rd lbw appeal he got one. Edwards for 0 (9/1). The ball was seaming and moving all over the place. Silvers was fielding near me during Richo’s over and he said to get one of the two at the crease would be nice. I said get Cameron White as well and he said that White would get himself out.
In Silvers next over he clean bowled Langer for 0 (9/2). Murtagh is now bowling from Nursery end and in his second over bowls Trescothick (19/3).
Gosh what a good start. Pitch obviously been ‘juiced up’ by the use of tarpaulins and not the hover.
Chris Wright now bowling from the pavilion end and with his 3rd ball gets White caught behind (24/4), and he almost got Blackie with his 5th. All our boys definitely thought Blackie had nicked one also but the umpire did not give it. They closed on 36/4 so a satisfying hour for our boys.
Silvers was right about White as he probably though he could slog Wright all over the ground.
I then went to get some autographs, the high point being that someone my friends call ‘neckbrace’ (as he used to wear one, and I don’t know the guys name) actually asked Justin Langer who was he.
Day Two
…went unreported…
…which is a shame, as this was the infamous day that Justin Langer declared at 50/8 to deny Middlesex a bowling point…
e-mail from Ged to Barmy Kev the next day:
“We ended up with no-one yesterday, which is a shame. We have Pistol Pete lined up for today and potentially Saturday if needed. Ged Ladd himself might do Saturday if there is enough left in the game overnight (even Daisy has shown interest in seeing some 4 day cricket!).”
Day Three
Published As “Middlesex Home In On The Win”
by Pistol Pete
MATCH: Somerset home day 3
DATE: 1/6/07
VENUE: Lord’s
The weather forecast was ‘heavy showers’ but at the start of the day there was no sign of rain, and the pitch had a green tinge which indicated that there would still be some help for the quick bowlers. This proved to be the case as Kieswetter played a loose drive at the second ball of the day from Chris Silverwood and was comfortably taken at 3rd slip by Ed Joyce. Shortly afterwards Peter Trego got a fine edge from Silvers to a ball that moved away and was caught behind, and when Langer was lbw to Tim Murtagh to make the score 60-5, the view in the Warner stand was that it would be all over by lunch…
White and Hilditch were still being troubled by the moving ball, Hilditch playing one cover drive that went in the direction of backward square leg, but with the sun out, the pitch was easing and the ball was getting older, and batting gradually became easier. At 12.30 we were -3 on the over rate, so Jamie D came on, which improved the over rate but there was nothing in the pitch for him and lunch was taken at 148-5, still 50-odd behind.
For those of you interested in culinary matters, your correspondent’s lunch (or perhaps luncheon, since we are at Lord’s) was cheese and onion sandwiches and a couple of pints of Adnams in the Windsor Castle.
White and Hilditch continued at a run a minute after lunch (hopefully satisfying the pitch inspectors if not the Middlesex supporters) and Somerset were approaching the Middlesex score when Silvers produced a beauty which White edged and was splendidly caught by David Nash diving to his right. When Blackwell edged Silvers’ next delivery into the safe (as I thought then) hands of Ed Joyce, the score was 189-7, Somerset were still behind and the view in the Mound stand was that it would be all over by tea…
However Hilditch was still batting well and found an unlikely partner in Steffan Jones. We had lost Alan Richardson; he seemed to fall while delivering the ball and couldn’t finish the over. I don’t think he was limping as he went off but don’t know what the problem was. Also by this time Silvers and Tim were knackered and what energy they had left had to be saved for the new ball. So Hilditch and Jones put on 50 in even time, another 50 in 25 minutes and we were beginning to look a bit threadbare. The new ball was taken 2 overs before tea, and Hilditch was dropped by Ed Joyce off Tim. As gully catches go, it was pretty simple (sorry Ed) Tea was taken at 323-7 (Hilditch 125, Jones 56, 121 ahead)
It was darker after tea and the umpires spoke a couple of times but play continued. I thought that we really needed to finish them off quickly with the new ball before Silvers and Tim were completely exhausted, as Richo was still off and Chris Wright and Jamie D hadn’t looked threatening. And thankfully that’s what happened. Silvers bowled Hilditch, Ed J dropped Jones, and Murtagh had Caddick lbw, then bowled Willoughby as he attempted to heave the ball over the Mound stand. Phew.
So we need 138. Nick and Billy were obviously not interested in trying to finish today (there would have been 32 overs if we had taken the extra half-hour), and they didn’t have a great deal of trouble. There was one appeal for caught behind off Nick, then Trego got Billy lbw for 31 with a swinging yorker. Ace and Nick saw us to the close at 72-1, more than half way there. The view in the Edrich stand was that it would be all over by lunch tomorrow, and if the weather holds, I think they may be right.
Summary: A really engrossing day’s play. A heroic effort from Silvers, who must have the player of the month award for June sown up already. We lost our way a bit in the afternoon, but you can’t really expect to win every session, especially without Chaminder and Murali, and it looks like we are going to beat a pretty decent team, and with 11 England qualified players in our side.
Day Four
Submitted as “The whipping of the Wyverns”
Published as “Tears In My Cider”
by the late, lamented Derek Britton, aka The Diamond Ruled OK
Journey story .
No real tale to tell here today except for a successful trip up to Lord’s with no delays. Those services that had delays, closures or cancellations on them were being well announced on both stations and trains. It would seem that the London Underground PR department have learnt a thing or two in recent times, like if you are going to inconvenience your customers at least let them know what’s happening. The skies that had been clear and cloudless since dawn in West London were the same when I emerged from St John’s Wood tube at about 10.30am. Dry overnight and a virtually windless day it was going to be hard work for our visitors from the West to get anything out of this game bar the early train out of Paddington. Stopping us scoring 66 off the available overs with 9 wickets in hand would also cause them problems.
The play.
I picked up a scorecard and on turning it over was amazed to find a runs per over section to cover the 50 over games. This is something we have lacked for years and well done to whoever has decided to innovate this.
Ace and Compo resumed the innings with Somerset -1 on the over rate. Any ideas of this pair seeing us through to the win were terminated by Trego’s second ball which Compo fenced to Trescothick in the slips, gone for his overnight score of 21. The first ball Joyce received was well wide and acknowledged as such by the umpire, this was greeted with cheering and applause by the sparse crowd. The target is soon below 50 with some good shots being played by both batsmen who were getting 4’s to all parts off both Trego and Caddick There was a point were I felt certain that Ed was under orders from Woody to get the game over with so he could get to Epsom to watch the Derby this afternoon! The 100 came up really quickly and Langer had the ball looked at by the umpires, it was not changed, stop bowling dross that hits the fence and it won’t go out of shape will it !!
The target ever closer and the over rate still behind Langer took off Trego and Caddick and replaced them with White and Mackay (sorry, Jones).This got the over rate back to par but the steady flow of singles and a very well taken two by Ace to some sloppy fielding saw us to within 22 of the win. The 50 partnership came up in 42 minutes.
Time for a pint me thinks. In the time it took me to fight my way through the hordes at the bar, I mean walk up to it and have the young lady pull me a Marstons Ed had knocked of 5 more of the total required. Give us a chance to get my pint Ed let alone drink it won’t you!! The end of the 36th over of the innings saw us 2 runs from the win and Ace heading back to the pavilion early having played Jones straight into the hands of Trego while going for the winning boundary (136-3). Enter Skipper, EJ gets a single to tie the game and ES hits one off his second ball to gain us 18 lovely points.
Smith: not out 1, Joyce: not out 45. Well played lads now take the rest of the day off.
Ed Joyce was the star of the day with his 45 not out (to go with his 42 from the first innings) but the guy who won us the match has to be Woody, enjoy your racing this afternoon sir. 9-62 in the match (should have been 10 but there we go). The figures that really matter are those 18 secured in the points column.
