Manchester Weather At Lord's

Bluuebadge reports on a rainy evening at Lord's. He and his brood were hoping to see VVS Laxman play, but it seems that VVS stood for "very very soggy" last night so he was not to be seen with a bat. But the Bluebadge family did get to see Lord's and 26 overs of less than thrilling cricket. Read about it here and many thanks to Bluebadge for the write up.

Choices to be made before the start of this game. A friend phoned at lunchtime with the offer of a ticket for the Arsenal v Celtic game, promising me that Lord’s would be a washout. Manfully I resisted the temptation of football, poking my head out of the office window to see bright and breezy fluffy white clouds and assuring him that the weather looked set fair for the day. Besides, I’d promised to take No. 1 and No. 2 sons to the cricket, as well as arranging to meet a couple of friends there. And with the lure of seeing an innings from VVS Laxman how could I not go to Lord’s?

The first hint that I’d made a bad choice came when No. 1 son told me that the BBC said the tail end of a hurricane was due to arrive in London in the afternoon. As soon as we arrived at the Grace Gates the drizzle began and start of play was put back to 4.10 pm. We comforted ourselves with pies in the Warner stand. Grumpily looking at the weather No. 2 son said he wanted to move to South Africa where ‘it never rains’. Told him he had as much chance of that happening as Will Buckley being best man at the nuptials of Jonathan Agnew and Lily Allen. 

Watching the build up on Sky in the bar it’s noted that there are unfamiliar names on the Middlesex team sheet because of their England players being on duty. Reflected that they’d hardly get into Middlesex’s team on current form, let alone Engand.

Under murky skies play began, the match being optimistically reduced to 37 overs per side. Starting to wish that I’d brought my jumper and coat I noticed that half the Lancy team were in shirt-sleeves. They breed ‘em tough up north.

Hogg opened up the bowling from the Nursery End, immediately appearing to get good bounce (when did that start at Lord’s?), as did Sajid Mahmood (remember him?!) from the Pavilion. At over 2 the first outbreak of ‘Ohhhhh, Lancy Lancy…’ was heard, but a rather half-hearted outburst, the cricket being of the ‘We’ll get ‘em in singles’ variety and not likely to cause a riot.

Middlesex were obviously feeling the need to hurry up a little, Compton first advancing down the pitch to Hogg, only to smother an edge on the bounce to slip, then Malan out pulling Mahmood to square leg. With Malan trudging back to the pavilion, rather improbably, drinks were taken. At the non-strikers end Compton was making some shapes. Defensive shapes. Why do batsmen always make defensive shapes? When I make shapes I always shape creaming a cover drive to the boundary. Or hooking a bouncer out of the park.

Dexter came in with Mahmood bowling quick but giving away no-balls which Middlesex seemed unable to cash in on. Compton got the first 4 of the innings, cutting Hogg, which led to a burst of run-scoring with two more pulled fours by Dexter and a beautiful on-drive by Compton. All of which stroke-playing ended by Dexter driving a catch to cover off Mahmood. 28 for 2.

A bright point of the evening, young John Simpson (a Lancastrian I believe) came in for his first innings in this form of cricket and immediately made an impact, pulling Croft in unorthodox fashion, seemingly taking the ball of his own big toe. Croft took a tonking and was taken off after one over and spinners put on at both ends. Simpson and Compton batted comfortably with each other for a while, but I missed Simpson getting out for 22. Apparently he charged the spinner and kept on walking when he realized he was going to be stumped. But a nice score on debut and worth keeping his place in the one-day team. He didn’t look out of place.

Now the boys desperate for Henderson to come out and thrash a few sixes, it being fairly obvious that either the game wouldn’t finish, or there’d be some D/L shenanigans and we needed the run rate up. But Berg came in, and the run rate did come up, creeping over 4 an over for the first time in the match with Compton playing the anchor role and getting to his 50 with a well run two in the 28th over.

And that was about it. Played definitively abandoned at 8.10 pm, just late enough not to make it worth my while to get over to Ashburton Grove. Still there was one consolation. As No. 2 son said, ‘At least Middlesex didn’t lose’.