For reasons I cannot entirely explain I spent a bit of time yesterday writing a review of the game. I suppose it's a bit like an old fashioned Snapchat that I can keep as a memento!
On a foggy mid-September morning we drove to London with the car packed full of winter paraphernalia: coats, hats, gloves, umbrellas, flasks full of coffee and a blanket. Naturally I left the sun cream at home given a forecast of intermittent sun at best. Not for the last time the day’s forecast was wrong. The sun shone incessantly and winter remained packed away in our rucksack.
We were still moseying along Maida Vale when Gloucestershire lost their captain Michael Klinger. I had that oh so modern tranny pressed to my ear – the mobile phone. I half expected the muffled voice of Simon Mann to tell me to turn back and head home such was Klinger’s perceived importance. But we knew better. Gloucestershire have had more than one match winner in this seasons competition and they have a happy knack of winning when all seems lost.
We took our seats at the top of the Edrich stand, underneath the big screen. The empty and soon-to-be refurbished Warner stand looked sorry for itself with a white fence wrapped around the front, it’s unsightly brick façade exposed in places and top tear seats lying limply at half-mast as if to mourn the passing of another cricketing summer, but the rest of Lord’s was hearteningly busy.
For a while Gloucester seemed well set. Dent looked in fine fettle in racing to 22 at more than a run-a-ball before he drove languidly to mid-off. How long Gloucester will persevere with Dent remains to be seen but one suspects he will need to win his county a few matches next summer during the last year of his contract to prolong his stay. Despite losing two wickets in the confusingly named first Powerplay, the Gloucester run rate was just about acceptable at 4.4 runs per over; all the more so given the advantage bowling first has historically bestowed upon the side that wins the toss during the season’s climax.
37 year old Gareth Batty offered evidence that nerves get to even the most seasoned campaigner by throwing his first two deliveries down the leg side. Oh how mercilessly we cheered! However Batty had the last laugh as with the score on 78 Marshall dozily ran past another wide. At 100/3 the Gloucester innings was in the balance. The Boycott adage of the score not looking as secure if two wickets were added to the total felt highly relevant. And so it came to pass. I wondered if Gloucestershire’s lack of recent Lord’s experience might bring the over mentioned slope a victim or two and both Howell and Roderick fell to the dependable Mahmood, who ran the ball back down the hill and into the right handers to good effect.
In an old fashioned move and with the score 108/5 in the 25th over, the doughty Tom Smith was sent up the order to bat time and protect the more expansive Taylor and Fuller. Along with Jones he set about building a platform from which Gloucester could launch an assault in the last 10 overs. The blue print was clear. Get to 150 after 35 overs and 170 after 40. They weren’t far off their target. Smith was run out in the 40th over with the score on 160, but he’d done his job. Could Taylor give the innings some oomph?
The answer was yes and he smashed the only six of the game square of the wicket on the on side off Tom Curran. When Taylor drove a Dernbach slower ball through the covers for 4 it looked like the Surrey attack might wilt, but Dernbach, the pantomime villain, saw off the threat. Taylor carved the ball to backward point with the score on 209 and with that Gloucester subsided.
The Geraint Jones (“Jones – Bowden – England have won by 2 runs!”) was playing his last competitive match. He fell for a well-paced and utterly crucial 50 and left the wicket to the last of his three tumultuous ovations from the Lord’s crowd. The first had come as he walked to the crease and the second as he brought up his 50, just one ball before his untimely demise.
The drama continued apace. Miles inside edged the next ball and wicketkeeper Wilson took the catch to give Dernbach his 5th victim, before the hat trick ball hit a ducking Payne on the body. The slower, loopy delivery completely deceived the batsman and the umpire raised his finger. Replays confirmed the suspicion that the ball would have missed another set of stumps. The boos directed at umpire Rob Bailey were unsavory but nevertheless, Payne will have left the field cursing his luck. It was a dreadful LBW decision and the kind that tends to befall a number 11, all the more so in club cricket, as the umpire subconsciously pines for tea and a good sit-down.
Gloucester were all out and the mood was glum. In a summer in which 300 had become the minimum, surely 220 wouldn’t be enough. Surrey had one of the best players of all time down to bat at number 3. At least Cam girls and Frampton boys won their respective matches during the interval meaning we’d win the day, even if a 2-1 series win appeared the best we could hope for.
Fuller and Payne had other ideas and started stupendously. Fuller in particular bowled at good pace, found a mesmerizing length and beat the outside edge a number of times. Whilst one might consider this encouragement, to a long standing sufferer sat in the stand this was merely further confirmation that the God’s were against us.
And then glory be, England’s Jason Roy hacked at a length ball and top edged a catch to Smith. Davies followed just after the Powerplay and for a moment 221 seemed a long way off until Gloucester were Sangakkaraed. What a privilege it was to watch the master nudge, nurdle and deflect the good ball into the gap, to rotate the strike with consummate ease, to hit the bad ball for 4 as he and Burns added over 100 runs. What a magnificent….oh who am I kidding. We needed him out. The game was slipping away and it looked like Gloucester would be embarrassed until from nowhere the Sri Lankan chipped a Taylor full-toss to Klinger at midwicket.
Burns followed in the kind of dismissal that will, for the first time, have sent a shiver through the Surrey dressing room. He came down the track, was beaten in the flight and was stumped by a mile. It was game on and we knew it. Aided by the amber nectar the Edrich stand found their voice. The chicken song (which I had the foresight to explain to my foreign-to-these-parts girlfriend earlier in the day) was interspersed with chants of Glawster…Glawster.
Wilson, Mahmood and Tom Curran went for single figure scores but it looked like 17 year old Sam Curran would get his side over the line. Without landing the killer blow Surrey stayed a run or two ahead of the Duckworth-Lewis par score and even when Burke was run-out by Dent off the last ball of the 49th over it still felt like Surrey’s to lose. Crucially Curran retained the strike for the final over and he was joined by Gareth Batty and all of his experience. The score was 214/8 and Surrey needed 7 runs to win from the last 6 balls.
Payne bowled the first ball of the last over on a length and perhaps sensing glory Curran hit it in the air towards us and long off. There was one of those characteristic and excitable he’s going to be caught sort of gasps from the crowd as the ball looped towards Howell. He caught it and we knew it was won. We couldn’t bring ourselves to admit it for fear of tempting fate but the evidence was irrefutable. Surrey had bottled it.
There followed a dot ball from a good yorker before Batty swatted a shortish ball out towards the deep-midwicket boundary. I lost the flight of the ball but I knew what was coming as this time the characteristic he’s going to be caught excitable gasp emanated from the Grandstand. Taylor kept his cool to catch the ball before we lost ours. It was a jump up and down with your shirt flapping uncontrollably around your midriff moment. Glorious Gloucester had done what they do best and had beaten their more fancied counterparts. The margin of victory was just 6 runs. We high-fived and hugged and clapped as our hero’s leaped towards us.
Ridiculously the presentation was made in front of the sparsely populated pavilion. The patrons there had stayed out of politeness but the fans in the Edrich waited to share in the moment. Lord’s should have brought the celebration to the masses but this was one of the few aspects of the day that disappointed me. Bring on the champions they sang as Batty spoke with good grace before Klinger spoke to Sky’s Michael Atherton. He couldn’t be prouder he said. Damn right, we agreed.
They collected their medals, they lifted the cup and they brought it to us. Underneath the Edrich they sang their team song with gusto as we drifted out under the orange sky, the sun setting on our summer. All Glorious. All Gloucester’s.
