One Nelluva day!

Surrey v Northants: Day Three at the Brit Oval

I’m so glad I took a half day from work, even although nothing much actually happened for the majority of it from a Surrey point of view! Okay, I was feeling ill and headachy until after the lunch break, and fell asleep on the fold-down bed (which I managed to break for the second time in the space of a week) but to be honest I don’t think I missed that much by the sound of it. Churchy’s got such a soothing voice that I kept drifting in and out of consciousness. I wonder if he’s considered a sideline career in doing audio books? Get him to read ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ and ‘Mog The Forgetful Cat’ to the kids: he’d make a fortune!

What I did gather from when I was actually awake was that Surrey had one wicket to get in the Northants first innings. It took a bit of time but you always felt it was a formality, really. Possibly that’s why I kept zedding all the time! I did actually hear Brooks’ departure, with Batty picking up another wicket: his fifth in the game as it turned out. Brooks likes to tonk the ball about a bit looking at the shots he played: four 4s and three 6s are not bad from a tail ender! But at the end of the day all Northants managed to achieve was one solitary batting point, and Surrey were quick to stick them in and have another crack at them.

I was going to use the old simile of ‘three busses turning up at once’, but perhaps I’d better not. In Edinburgh we’re still waiting for our trams to arrive. If Surrey waited for a wicket as long as we will have to wait for the work in the city centre to finish, they could have expected to dismiss Peters sometime in 2013...

As it happens it did seem that was the way it was going to pan out. Cricketers must have incredible patience and concentration. For so long nothing happened, and I was reduced to waking myself up with the sound of my own snoring (which quite disgusted my cat who was sleeping on the chair in the same room), punctuated with pleas to the cricket gods to grant Surrey a wicket or two before the heavens opened again. And then, lo and behold, from out of nowhere Peters was dispatched with typical Günter efficiency for 50. It was as if the cap had been unscrewed on a violently shaken bottle of Diet Pepsi, for no sooner had the pressure been released by the wicket of Peters than Howgego was Howgegone!

Wait...this gets better.

Sales went for a duck, bowled by Tremlett. And then Tremlett also got White, whom he’d almost managed to turn into a eunuch with his previous delivery, for a resounding zero! Four wickets gone with no further runs added! Tremlett and Nel must be one of the bowling duos you’d least like to face on the county circuit at the moment. Even when hobbling like Long John Silver Andre gives it everything, and Tremlett has become increasingly accurate and economical the more he’s played.

And then there’s Stuart Meaker. Gareth Batty had a pretty fine haul of wickets today, but then so did Meaks. With five down you really felt Surrey had a really good chance of finishing the game with a day off for good behaviour. If it wasn’t quite ‘start the coach time’ you were probably thinking that the Northants driver was behind the wheel! And sure enough, another little clump of wickets fell in the same way they had in the first innings: Wakely out for 7 runs to a catch by Nel that sounded as if it was right out the top drawer! Sometimes you feel it’s a bit of a pity that the cameras are static and focussed on the middle in the replays, and I guess this is one of those times! And then shortly afterwards Hall departed for 2, with Meaker taking another. It all seemed a little too good to be true; although Chigumbura tried to show the same stubbornness he had whilst occupying the crease the day before. When he went for 25 it was definitely looking like a Surrey victory was inexorably heading the way of the home team.

There remained the small matter of Murphy, whom Meaker removed for 8, Lucas (brilliantly caught by Afzaal for 14) and Brooks (brilliantly but hilariously not-caught by Afzaal). Poor old Usman has had a mixed game: failing with the bat yet again but always seemingly popping up at a vital moment to claim a wicket, take a catch or turn himself into a two-seater propeller aeroplane. The non-catch, following almost immediately from his sublime take of Murphy, reduced Tremlett (and Mark Church) to tears of laughter. Considering someone once said that Afzaal’s fielding reminded them of ‘a bear doing aerobics’ he’s probably not done too badly!

Brooks and Middlebrook appeared determined to delay the expected outcome, but it was inevitable that the final wicket would fall to Afzaal, and to be caught by man-of-the-match Ramprakash. Did Afzaal run after him for his customary hug? I don’t know, because just as inevitably I was sitting down to tea when the last wicket fell! Grrrrrrrr!

So, there you have it. A win for Surrey by one innings and 175 runs, I kid you not! If it was an episode of a Dynasty-style soap opera, the credits would go up with RHB and Spriegel as the young, dashing brothers, Nel and Tremlett two nightclub bouncers, Batty as the local sheriff, Meaker as his apprentice, M R Ramprakash as the lord of the manner and Afzaal as...er...the one with big shoulder pads. But even if the massive total was built upon Ramps’ hefty 248 the fact is this was a triumph for the whole team: their first at the Oval since back in 2007! Every one of them contributed to the win in some way.

Even the lemon tree on the boundary bowed its branches in respect!