Southport’s mushy focus belies Hampshire’s hard-fought problem
Lancashire 374 and 48 for two want 92 runs to beat Hampshire 142 and 371 (Vince 87, Middleton 77, Gubbins 62; Balderson 3-84)
It is simply gone half-past twelve at Trafalgar Road and Jack Blatherwick is bowling the 62nd over of Hampshire’s second innings to Fletcha Middleton. It is a productive if fortuitous jiffy for the opener, who inside-edges one boundary to superb leg and misdrives one other via midwicket. Otherwise, there are two backward defensive strokes, a bouncer that he geese underneath and a leave-alone. Middleton is now 76 not out, having reached his third half-century in solely his tenth Championship innings. This is his first season on the county circuit, though he is aware of a bit about it as a result of his father, Tony, was each participant and coach on the Rose Bowl. Hampshire are 176 for two, nonetheless 56 runs in arrears. But what else is occurring?
Well, there’s lots of mild enjoyment at Southport this sun-filled morning. Last evening’s rain has left the burned outfield a richer brown and a great crowd is watching Hampshire try and keep away from defeat and perhaps set Lancashire a cunning goal within the fourth innings. For many hundreds of spectators on the bottom or logging onto the reside stream, that is the cricket they take pleasure in most. Gulls within the sky and in my blue eyes.
Need there be the rest?
Yes, in fact. In the instant context, Middleton will rating solely one other single earlier than being bowled by one which retains barely low from George Balderson. The identical bowler has already snared Nick Gubbins leg earlier than wicket for 62 and he’ll take a 3rd wicket in 23 deliveries when Ben Brown is caught behind for a three-ball nought.
At lunch Hampshire are 210 for 4 and the prospects of a three-day end enhance twenty minutes after the resumption when Liam Dawson is caught behind by Phil Salt off George Bell for 26. Bell usually retains wicket for Lancashire and social media is seething with rage that he’s bowling earlier than Tom Hartley and that Matt Parkinson is not enjoying in any respect. Records recommend Bell has beforehand taken six wickets in any organised cricket however now Neil Mallender offers him a seventh when he decides that Dawson has nicked the ball to Salt.
The batsman is plainly gobsmacked – for the second time in two days, if you happen to learn any second-day stories – and he leaves the sphere gesticulating to no one in any respect. His captain, James Vince, stands aghast. Bell is somewhat boy in a toyshop. Life will get no kinder to the guests when Felix Organ is leg earlier than to Will Williams and Keith Barker nicks Tom Bailey to Daryl Mitchell at slip. And it has been clear for a while that Hampshire’s hopes of taking this recreation right into a fourth day – and even profitable it – relaxation on Vince, whose straight drives and dreamy pulls are already adorning the afternoon. But why is it that Middleton’s batting and Bell’s bowling stay on one’s thoughts whilst one of many recreation’s most swish stroke-makers glides in the direction of a century?
To reply that query we would flip to Chris Firth’s glorious programme for this match and the next phrases from John Arlott:
Test cricket’s all very effectively as a spectacle and all that, however I like a county recreation – , maybe at Glastonbury or Horsham or Neath or Ebbw Vale, the place you’ll be able to hear the gamers speaking to one another…And you’re feeling one way or the other near the gamers. This is the place you get a bond with county cricket, and that is the place they appear so good and so proper there.
Arlott was chatting with Mike Brearley in 1986, when much more outgrounds had been used however the passing of 37 years has not diminished the impression of his ideas. The man who had seen Ray Lindwall in his pomp, Tom Graveney in all his splendour and Garry Sobers at his matchless greatest nonetheless most popular the county circuit due to its regional eccentricity, its wealthy humanity, its consonance between particular person and place.
That inserting of the flower present above the state banquet would maybe be understood by a lot of those that have watched their cricket at Southport or Chesterfield this week however we should be cautious right here. Arlott mentions the gamers speaking to one another as, certainly, they nonetheless do. The encouragement to Bailey and Williams as they sought to make early breakthroughs could possibly be heard fairly clearly by the gang massed on the Harrod Drive End this crystal morning. But they now additionally speak about one another to a level one suspects Arlott hardly ever knew. For instance, think about this remark from one Lancashire cricketer to a different after Blatherwick had altered his line of assault to Middleton on Monday night: “I’m not sure why Jack went round, he [Middleton] was shitting himself from over.”
Such observations are most likely fairly acquainted to membership cricketers; the leisure recreation has by no means been the mild circus some assume it. But listening to the phrases spoken to an opener who was enjoying his seventh first-class recreation bolstered the purpose that whereas Middleton is a fellow skilled, he’s additionally an opponent and an impediment. If deadly injury to his profession is the consequence of dismissing him, so be it. Watching cricket at Southport could also be as interesting a suburban pastoral as any in England however bear in mind these males are enjoying for his or her careers in addition to their groups. In different phrases, don’t forget that county recreation is bloody powerful. The common age at which knowledgeable cricketer retires is 26 and never everyone has stress fractures.
And now it’s simply gone 5 o’clock and Vince is progressing with understated grace to what’s certainly an inevitable century. Hartley has dropped him on 80, a troublesome probability excessive to the slip’s left, however he’s unbeaten on 87 when Daryl Mitchell bowls him a brief ball – and he pulls it straight to Josh Bohannon at deep sq. leg. It has been a beautiful innings and, as so typically with Vince, a irritating one.
Within 40 minutes Lancashire’s openers are strolling out to bat with their facet needing 140 to win their first Championship recreation of the season. 1 / 4 of an hour later each are again within the Trafalgar Road dug-out, Salt having been felicitously caught at slip by Vince off Mohammad Abbas, and Balderson taken by Brown off Barker. On the moment the air at Southport is thick with nervousness and it rings with the encouragement of Hampshire’s cricketers.
But no extra wickets fall. Bohannon and Vilas will begin once more within the morning with 98 runs wanted and nobody is looking the sport but. But as Lancashire edge their approach in the direction of their goal, Fletcha Middleton will most likely be standing within the slips, up straight within the sunshine and questioning what the sport will present him within the coming months. The Ashes can be no richer than this.
Paul Edwards is a contract cricket author. He has written for the Times, ESPNcricinfo, Wisden, Southport Visiter and different publications