Day at Lords

It was my first experience of visiting Lords yesterday watching a day of County Cricket and what a day it was. I was very excited especially at the prospect of seeing Alistair Cook and Ravi Bopara bat for Essex, well yesterday was my lucky day as I was fortunate enough to watch them bat twice. Essex it is safe to say had a nightmare day, the conditions suited the Middlesex bowling line up and they took full advantage. They were helped considerably by some very average batting, the batsmen didn’t show much fight, regularly wafting or hanging their bats out waiting for the edge, they duly came with 12 of the 20 dismissals falling to catches by the wicket keeper or slip cordon.

Cook looked good in both innings scoring 19 and 25 and in particular in the 2^nd innings before falling to a decent return catch by Stephen Finn. Ravi Bopara on the other hand was very disappointing, he showed a glimmer in each innings of the stroke maker he is but in both it appeared as though he wasn’t prepared to show the grit that was so obviously required in yesterday’s conditions.

The only bright spots for Essex were Jaik Mickleburgh 41 in Essex second innings and Tom Westley who top scored in both innings and his 59 in the second innings showed that Westley has a more than solid technique as well as possessing a number of scoring shots, if he carries on in this manner he could well have a very successful summer.

That is very much where the positives finish, Middlesex bowled well, their bowling attack comprises of a consistent county pro in Tim Murtagh who has flourished since moving to Middlesex from Surrey. Corey Collymore nagging line and length is perfect for Lords and he could prove to be an excellent player this season for Middlesex. Finn bowled with ferocious pace especially in his 2^nd innings spell that saw him remove Cook and Bopara. That will be a very encouraging sight for England and for the summer international fixtures to come. Finn will obviously not play much cricket for Middlesex as soon as the international schedule begins but Toby Roland-Jones will be a suitable replacement as he performed well last year and Gareth Berg who bowled superbly in the Essex 2^nd innings to take 4 wickets has improved significantly. Middlesex showed on this performance that they could have a very realistic chance of gaining promotion this season.

On the other hand the beginning of the season has not started well for Essex, after last weeks defeat to Kent they would have hoped for a much improved performance this week which just didn’t happen. The Essex batting on paper looks very strong but four failures out of four with the bat will now cause major concern for the Essex coach Paul Grayson who himself stated that promotion was the aim and priority of the season. This is looking a distant dream at the moment but surely the batting will come good at some point soon. With Lonwabo Tsotsobe to come into the team soon and then Owais Shah and Ryan Ten Doeschate to come back into the side after the IPL to go with the young talent of Westley, Mikkleburgh and Reece Topley, the 17 year old left arm bowler who has been sensational in the opening two games Essex most certainly have the talent at their disposal to improve on their woeful start, at least they know that things can hardly get any worse, if they do then this is going to be a very long and hard season for Essex.