Middlesex v Leicester -Southgate CC

Following on from the late evening finish at Lord's on the evening of Monday 10th September, we had an early start for the 4 day game against Leicestershire on the Tuesday morning. Middlesex won the toss and chose to bat - fairly abysmally as it turned out. Apart from an excellent 74 from Ed Joyce and a decent 35 from the wicketkeeper Ben Scott it was pretty woeful and Middlesex were knocked over for 176 before tea on the first day! Critically, that meant no batting points and even if we won the game, Nottinghamshire would only require a single point from their game against Somerset to take the second, and last, promotion place (which they duly achieved).

I won't gripe too much as it was a lovely sunny, warm late English summer's day - the sort of day that has been in very short supply this year - and the Walker ground in Southgate was lovely. All in all, two days away from work that were well worthwhile. Here's hoping that Middlesex do better next year and that I get a chance to see more games. Roll on April!

Can you get a much more English view than this?

First Day Night match at Lord's Cricket Ground

I finally got to see some cricket this summer, parenting duties and lousy weather had pretty much scuppered all opportunities until the Derbyshire 40 over aside game on September 10th which was the first game played under floodlights at Lords.

In the afternoon sun, Derbyshire got off to a flying start with over 100 on the board in the first 20 overs for the loss of one wicket. As the light began to drop to the horizon, they lost wickets and the run rate faded and they only managed to post 196-9.

Under the floodlights, Ed Joyce played an aggressive and entertaining innings of 68 and with help from Andrew Strauss (43) Middlesex strolled home to win and set themselves up for 3 place in Division 2 and a knock out match against Northamptonshire for promotion to Division 1.

These pictures were taken on my new mobile and I hadn't read the instructions at that point, so they aren't that good! The view is from the MCCC stand next to the pavilion.