The needle of local rivalries

It’s always good to start on a happy note and after Monday’s rained-off match at Hastings, we are now guaranteed qualification for the quarter-finals of the Friends Provident Trophy. We have one game left in the group stage (away to Middlesex) to decide whether we have a home or away tie but we’ve played some good cricket in the competition so feel we have a team capable of making progress wherever and whoever we play in the next round.

Wednesday’s match against Middlesex will be our eighth day of cricket (including friendlies) against our local rivals already this season – with more to add in the very near future! From a personal point of view I don’t feel that intensifies a rivalry because when you come across players so often you get to know them on and off the field, to the betterment of the relationships. What you can say for sure is that by the end of these matches we will know each other’s games inside out.

Our Championship match against Middlesex earlier in May did make a few headlines because of our decision not to allow our opponents to bring in a substitute wicketkeeper in our second innings when David Nash got injured. Although the decision is ultimately down to the coach and captain our collective view was that if a seam bowler got injured you can’t call in a substitute bowler so the same rule should apply to wicketkeepers.

It appears there is a bit of needle kicking around between the sides as a result of that decision so we wait to see how that impacts upon our forthcoming matches.

As it turned out our Championship game with Middlesex was one of the best victories I’ve been involved in for some while. When James Middlebrook and Chris Wright joined together in our second-innings run-chase it seemed the game was up but they came up trumps with an excellent unbeaten partnership.

Chris Wright had not had a lot of chances with the bat until that point but he had a good technique and timed the ball extremely sweetly on that afternoon. Our most recent Championship match – at home to Leicestershire – was one of the stranger four-day games I’ve been involved in. At the end of day one – with 18 wickets already done – it appeared we’d all be sat at home on Saturday with our feet up. After that, however, the wicket flattened out and Leicester ended up with a substantial lead to set us a tough run-chase on the last day.

Had Jason Gallian and Ravi Bopara gone into tea with unbeaten centuries then we could have mounted a charge in the final session. Alas it wasn’t to be so it came down to a matter of survival. Having felt out of touch in four-day cricket I was glad to get the chance to bat as much time as I could and with a couple of decent contributions down the order from David Masters and Tony Palladino we managed to hang on for a draw.

There was one nervous moment when last man Danish Kaneria spooned the ball just over mid-off’s head before it was down to me to survive the last over. At the end my exuberant fist-pumping celebrations were a mixture of relief at securing a draw and also at being able to bat for over four hours. There was a fair amount of needle in this match as well – as seems to be a regular occurrence these days! – so it was a good test of concentration and making sure I didn’t get involved in any potential confrontation.

Everybody has mucked in this season with good individual performances and it was my day on this occasion. That will be the key to a successful season or not.

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