What a Difference a Day Makes...

Or a week, to be more precise. T20 mania has taken a complete hold in the schedules. Now, as I’ve mentioned before I like a bit of T20 but it would be a lie if I said it was my favourite form of cricket. Yes, as my dad laughingly labelled me at the dinner table today, I am a ‘purist’. My sister thinks I’m nuts: she’d rather eat recycled cat litter than watch 4 day cricket, but coming from someone whose favourite movie musical has the unforgettable line ‘a man can’t sleep when he sleeps with sheep’, I think her ability to pass reasonable judgement on anything is in dispute...

Since the Derbyshire win the wheels haven’t so much fallen off for Surrey as been subject to a couple of slow punctures. After a few promising wins the boys lost comprehensively to a classy Hampshire, suffered the ignominy of having their match against Glamorgan rained off for a single point, and were today thumped by Gloucestershire. I can forgive the loss to Hants, who look to be a formidable force in the shorter form stuff, but the Gloucestershire loss wasn’t good any way you look at it. Especially after it started so well! A great knock from Cockbain was the difference, but you have to say Surrey rather let the Gloucestershire batsmen get away when they had the chance to tighten the thumbscrews on them. It wasn’t really helped when Surrey lost a very early wicket (heard that one before)! From that point on it seemed to destabilise the Surrey batsmen. Alas, teams in our group will look to capitalise on this weakness.

This is what I have learned then in the last few weeks:

Mark Church and Johnny Barran are very cool in the face of incoming cricket balls; if they’d been on the Titanic I reckon they’d simply have gone down with the ship announcing it was ‘a bit of an inconvenience’. Extremely professional in every respect: I fear I would have uttered a “sh*t, that bl**dy well nearly hit me in the b*llocking face!”

If Rory Hamilton-Brown loses his wicket for less than 10 runs the Surrey batsmen start clucking about like headless chickens. A bit harsh of me, perhaps. But given the amount of times it seems to happen I think I’m probably right.

Ramps is not playing the shorter forms of the game at the moment because, as we supposed, he doesn’t have the speed or general fitness given his ongoing recovery from his knee operation. We all guessed this was the reason, but there has been a surprising lack of communication on this point. In fact it was the ‘London Evening Standard' that actually bothered to let the fans know what was going on. I heard someone a few weeks back at the Grange say he’d been dropped because he “was too old”, which nearly resulted in me decking them (derogatory remarks made about my favourite players in any sport tends to bring out my latent maternal instincts). And to be honest, unlikely as this reason was for Ramps’ exclusion, you do tend to wonder what the situation is when there is no actual word from the club itself. The Rampants are collectively paranoid as it is without this kind of thing!

Walk-on girls are not popular with fans. I wanted to call it ‘glamgate’; save that it’s not exactly headline news, and also it makes it sound as if Cosgrove has been up to something naughty in an all-you-can-eat buffet. Basically, some clever chap (I’ll be surprised if it wasn’t a chap) decided the Surrey players were incapable of walking unaided to the pitch at the start of a game and so they would be escorted by ‘glamorous females’. A bit like Old Mr Grace in ‘Are You Being Served’ with his array of nurses.

Speaking as a non-glamorous female, of the rather plain and stocky variety, my comments are probably going to sound a tad suspicious. I did however, like many of my friends and several Surrey supporters I know of, question the reasoning – and indeed sanity – of the whole thing. I rather thought the idea of going to watch a cricket match was to see cricket, not scantily clad girls. Or is that me just being silly?

Anyhow, a small but vocal insurrection soon informed the relevant persons of the lack of wisdom in implementing the ghastly and tasteless idea. It was swiftly dropped. A big gold star to whoever had the courage to call it off: a big kick up the arse to whoever thought of it in the first place...

Kevin Pietersen is not popular with everyone - and to those die-hard fans who put county above country in particular. Witness this from the Gloucestershire game:


“The next batsman in for Surrey is Kevin Pietersen...”

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOHISSSSSSSSSSS...”

I mean, what was that about? Even I wouldn’t show that level of discourtesy to KP and he’s not my favourite player by a long way. Poor man just wanted to turn up, do some batting and help Surrey to win the game (hopefully not getting out to a left hand spinner in the process). Well, three out of four ain’t bad...

I have my new smart phone. I can now listen to the commentary at work *blows raspberry at employers who block internet access to cricket*. Of course, I can’t help but notice that since the purchase of the aforesaid gadget, Surrey have done nothing but lose. So, now it seems I can enjoy being miserable in real time as opposed to when I go home after work and check the scores...