Middlesex Till We Chai

Actually, this made for a wonderful atmosphere.  A friend in the pavilion gently suggested to me that most of those schoolchildren wouldn't pass the Norman Tebbit cricket test - they were mostly shouting for Bangladesh.  And good luck to them.  It was great to sense some atmposphere and from what I can gather the groups were part of a big initiative around cricket for inner city schools - I'm all for that.  Norman Tebbs can get on his bike.

They had plenty to shout for, Bangladesh-wise, with Imrul Kayes and Jahurul Islam going well.  Young Toby Roland-Jones came on to bowl and he looked quite impressive to me.  Soom Imrul holed out off Toby's bowling and it felt like a deserved wicket. 

With the score on 222-3 and Jahurul Islam on 88 I turned to my friends and suggested (quite against the run of play) that, numerically speaking, Jahurul didn't stand a chance.  He promptly holed out and a few pavilion afficionados turned around to take a look at who seer Ged might be.  Next week's lottery numbers will be.............

I wandered around and sat with a few different regulars over the course of the afternoon.  301 seemed like a challenging but perhaps gettable score, but I had forgotten that Bangladesh bowl Mashrafe Mortaza in one dayers as well as Shafiul Islam, which makes their pace attack reasonable.  The Bangladesh spinners are quite useful at one-day stuff too, not least Shakib Al Hasan who is one of the best.  Still, Simpson was beaten but a bit unlucly to play on. Jackson Thompson played a horrid looking shot but you don't get massive strike rates by playing safe.

A tight run but a good run that time

While Malan and Shah were at the crease we stood a chance, but while I was moving around from pav to Tavern, Malan was run out - I heard conflicting views on who was to blame. 

When Shakib got Ace out for 61, we all knew the writing was on the wall.  The few Bangladesh supporters in the Tavern Stand were very vocal, although by this time almost all the kids had gone home.  And at 8-down I went home too.  I might be Middlesex Till I Die, but I know when a game is well and truly dead.   It was all over by teatime; Middlesex Till We Chai.

Still, those who are reading anything into this match are probably reading too much into it.  It was a nice enough day out in the sunshine and perhaps some of those Bangladesh-supporting inner-city youngsters will be turning out in pink in a few years time.