Surrey v Middlesex - Match Drawn

I'm now in Phoenix after a 11-hour flight and 7-hour drive (love that LA rush hour!) and currently following the last day of the Surrey vMiddlesex cricket match online. I decided to create a separate post for the final result of the match that I saw a couple of days ago because there are some rules that should be explained first.

The Follow-on

After finishing day 2 on 148/0, Middlesex collapsed on Wednesday, losing all 10 wickets for only 176 additional runs to end their first innings at 324 against Surrey's 490. Surrey then had the option to ask for the follow-on. When the team batting second doesn't get close enough (150 runs in a 4-day match), their opponent has the option to make them bat again immediately. This way, the team with the lead has a better chance to win as they can bowl the team out twice for a smaller total to chase. As well, if the leading team is forced to bat again, they may put up such a high score that they won't have enough time to bowl their opponent out, resulting in a draw. Essentially the follow-on rule reduces the chance for the draw.

In this match though, Surrey, leading by 166 runs, did not enforce the follow-on, electing to bat instead.

Declaring

Surrey closed Wednesday's play at 165/2 with Mark Ramprakash at 100. This gave them a 331-run lead but with only one day left, the chances of both teams being bowled out were slim. So on Thursday, Surrey added 42 runs and then declared. This means they stopped batting as they believed they had enough runs to win the match. With only 88 overs left to play, they had to get all 10 Middlesex wickets to secure their first win of the season. Middlesex could win by scoring 374 runs, while a draw would result if Middlesex did not lose all 10 wickets.

Run Rate

Cricket is great for statistics, much like baseball. One key stat is the run rate. This is simply the number of runs per over. For example, Surrey's first innings saw them score 490 runs in 157.2 overs for a run rate of 3.11. The other way to use run rate though is to see what the necessary run rate is for a chasing team to win. For Middlsex, requiring 374 runs in 88 overs is a run rate of 4.25. Considering their first innings run rate was 3.61, it wasn't an impossible task, but not an easy one.

The Result

This would have been a great day to be at The Oval, but it's a bit far from Phoenix, so I resorted to following on-line.

Middlesex started slowly with Andrew Strauss and Scott Newman taking nearly 33 overs to put together a 103-run partnership (RR 3.14). They required another 271 runs in just 55.1 overs, or a very difficult 4.91 RR. It seems like they are playing for the draw, trying to avoid losing wickets rather than slog for the runs.

The match just finished and it was a draw as expected. This is probably the least comprehensible thing for fans who are new to cricket. How can you play 4 days and still have a draw?! The thing about cricket is that is a very subtle game. Although the final result is just a draw, during those 4 days it appeared as if both teams had a chance to win. The ebb and flow of the game over several days is what makes it unique and a sport I will continue to study in the years to come.

Best,

Sean

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Surrey 286/4 vs Middlesex - Day 1 - LV= County Cricket Division 2 at The Oval - May 17, 2010

I've pretty much completed my sightseeing in London, so had a bit of time Monday morning to visit The Oval, another historic cricket ground that lies just south of the Thames. It was Day 1 of a county cricket match between Middlesex and Surrey. The coolest thing about seeing Day 1 is that when Day 4 is being played, I'll be in Phoenix!

The Oval

The Oval was built in 1845 to provide a ground for the newly formed Surrey County Cricket Club. In the intervening years it saw many historical events, including the first ever international soccer match in 1870 and the first test in England in 1880. The clock below commemorates the 150th anniversary of the ground.



The closest tube stop is appropriately named Oval station on the Northern Line. But it's also walkable from Vauxhall or even from the north side of the Thames near Tate Britain. Tickets for county cricket matches are just 1o quid at the turnstiles. The capacity is around 25,000 and for the match yesterday there were maybe 500 spectators, so not much of a worry on getting a seat. When you enter you will notice the entire venue is enclosed by a brick wall that looks to be original from 165 years ago. Between the wall and the seating area is effectively the concourse and you can walk around the entire place, stopping in to check the view here or there.



The pavilion (above, taken from the middle of the field) is for members only but right next to it is the Laker Stand which provides a good view to the corner of the pitch. A couple of more blocks to the right will take you to the Peter May stand, which looks at the pitch straight from the side.


...or he may sit

Across the way from the pavilion is the recently-built OCS stand (below). It was mostly closed for this session but has some higher seats which should provide a different view. I found that the upper level of the Laker Stand was the best place to sit as it was in the sun (when it was out) and gave a good perspective on the bowling.



Perhaps the most distinct feature of the ground is actually outside it. To the west of the stadium lies an old gasometer, or gas holder. It has become world famous as The Oval is one of the grounds used in international Test matches and the gasometer is visible from many television angles. That's it below; you may notice the word "Brit" painted on the seats. This refers to the ground's sponsor Brit Insurance (the official name is now the Brit Insurance Oval). It's not nearly as nice as seeing the team name in the seats as you do in the local football stadiums.



There were a couple of food carts including one that sells seafood which surprised me. There's also an enclosed restaurant with a view of the field that is open from noon till 5, but again seafood. There we no pies so I didn't partake.

One warning: outside the ground there are signs saying "No Admittance with Alcohol or Music Instruments" so leave your tuba at home.

Overall, the recent developments here along with the copious amount of advertising made this less impressive than Lords. Still, it is one of the oldest facilities in use in the world and located close to central London, so check if there's a match on when your visiting and stop by if you can.

The Match

I saw Middlesex last week at Lord's so knew a bit about them. Their victory over Derbyshire moved them to 5th in the 9-team table. Surrey, however, was lying bottom with just a draw in 4 matches. Their star is Mark Ramprakash (below), an ex-Middlesex player who has spent 23 productive seasons in county cricket as well as some time with England in the 1990s.

Surrey won the toss and elected to bat as the wicket was quite flat.This implies that the bowlers will struggle to fool the batters and a high score should result. But that was not the case in the morning session as the Surrey batsmen spent most of the time protecting the wicket. In other words, they were just batting the ball weakly and not running. In the 8th over, youngster Laurie Evans (below) was bowled for just 10 runs, but he was replaced by Ramprakash who joined Arun Harinath in an 89-run partnership that lasted until well after lunch, including a short rain delay. But it was slow going that saw few boundaries. It was rather dull cricket but proper strategy as Surrey were not taking any risks early in the match.

After Harinath (below) was caught out I stayed for a while to see Ramprakash make his 50 before I headed home. It was getting cold as the sun had disappeared and I didn't expect much to happen in the last few hours. Turns out that Ramprakash managed 125 runs on the day, and Surrey ended up with a promising 286/4 with all 96 overs being played.



I saw about half of those overs but just 110 runs - as the day progressed Surrey changed their strategy as the heavy hitters started swinging harder. The danger for Surrey is taking too much time at bat and then not being able to bowl Middlesex out twice. I'd say that the first sessions of a Test are probably the least interesting, but you never know what might happen. I'm glad I went but it was more entertaining last week watching Middlesex chase a low total.

Notes

There was a fox that repeatedly entered the field and disrupted play. It was quite amusing to watch the players chase it around until it jumped over the fence, only to appear again a few minutes later. With that and the rain, I was surprised they made all 96 overs by the end of play.

During lunch spectators are allowed onto the field. It's always an interesting experience being on a professional sporting ground, but this one has so much history it was easy to imagine the cricketers from a 100 years ago playing exactly the same game. That's the pitch below with the stumps clearly visible.



The shop had a sale on cricket jerseys from last season so I picked one up for £5. So now I guess I'll have to root for Surrey. Given that they are in last place, it's not something that will take much getting used to after 35 years as a Toronto Maple Leafs fan.

Day two has just finished and Surrey were all out for 490 with Ramprakash notching 223 runs for a double century. Middlesex have responded for 148 without losing a wicket, so it looks like a draw is likely at this point. In the first two days, only 10 wickets have been taken, which means that 30 wickets would be necessary in the next two days. I'll post the final result here so check back on Thursday.

From a road trip perspective, Test cricket might be the worst sport to watch. It takes all day, which is when you should be doing some sightseeing. Still, I'd like at one point to watch an entire test just for the experience. So I hope to be back again in better weather.

Next Up

Tomorrow I'm flying to LA and driving to Phoenix. I'll arrive too late for the Diamondbacks-Giants game but Thursday should see Tim Lincecum pitching for San Francisco, so I'll be there to watch that. Then the streaking Jays are in town for the weekend. Sharpy is joining me so it should be a good time. Talk to you then!

Best,

Sean

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Middlesex v Derbyshire- Day 2 - LV= County Cricket Division 2 at Lord's

With the EPL season ending last Sunday, the London sports scene has turned quiet. Fortunately, I had the pleasure of working next to an Australian and Englishman a few years ago. They spent most of the day insulting each other's soccer, rugby, and cricket teams. I knew about soccer and rugby, but the cricket terminology was new to me and I felt left out, so I studied the game and gradually learned the lingo. During the 2006-07 Ashes series we had an on-line subscription to the series in the office so we spent the days watching live cricket. I also spent a couple of days in Melbourne at the Boxing Day Test. Even though Australia won handily, it was a lot of fun following along and I became a fan. It's really not a difficult game to learn and once appreciated, can be quite fascinating.

Rules of Cricket

I'm not going to go into a full explanation of the game of cricket here. Like any sport, it takes watching a few games to understand the rules completely. But I will give a brief overview so the rest of the post makes some sense.

There are three versions of cricket: test matches, which take place over multiple days, one-day matches, which are limited to 50 overs per side, and 20/20 matches, which are just 20 overs per side and take about 3 hours. I will talk about test cricket which is the original form and the most interesting.

The game is similar to baseball in a few ways: there are innings and umpires, somebody throws a ball, somebody tries to hit it with a bat, and runs are the object of the game while avoiding outs. That's where the similarities end.

In cricket, there are only 2 innings for each team. The innings (the plural is used) refers only to the team who is batting. Each innings consists of 10 outs. There are 11 players per team and two batters at any time (below), hence 10 outs is the limit. Once a batter is out, he must return to the clubhouse to wait for his team to field.

Meanwhile, the team in the field bowls the ball and the batter tries to strike it, hitting it where the fielders ain't. And the fielders ain't in very many places: the field is 3 times as large as a baseball diamond and there's no foul balls. The batter can hit it anywhere he wants. If he doesn't feel he can score a run safely, he just doesn't run. So outs are not that common.

To understand the cricket field, picture a baseball stadium with no infield seating, just outfield seats all around. In the middle of this large oval is the cricket pitch, a small strip of short grass where all the action takes place. At each end of the pitch are 3 stumps of wood which hold two smaller wooden crosspieces known as the bails. These are the wickets. The batter stands at one end of the pitch in front of the wicket while the bowler runs towards him from the other end. When he reaches the pitch, he uses a complete overarm motion to bowl the ball, bouncing it on the ground before it reaches the batter. The batter then swings and runs if the ball is safely away from the fielders. The other (off-strike) batter must also run and whenever they reach the other end of the pitch, a run is scored. They may run back and forth as long as possible on a batted ball, although 1 or 2 runs are the most common result. Should the ball roll to the boundary, 4 runs are given, and should the ball clear the boundary without a bounce (like a home run), 6 runs are given. In the picture below, a fielder runs to get the ball while the batsmen are running in the background.

Batters can be out in four main ways. The first is to bat a ball that is caught before it hits the ground (just like baseball). The second is to have the bails knocked off the stumps while running between the wickets - this is called being run out. Finally, the batter may miss the ball and have it strike the wicket - in that case he has been bowled out. If the batter blocks the ball from striking the wicket, the umpire may also call him out on an lbw (leg before wicket). There are other ways of getting out, but they are much rarer. When an out is made, the term wicket is applied. A typical cricket score might be 180-6 which means 180 runs with 6 wickets taken (6 batters out and 4 outs to go).

You might have noticed the word "over" up above when describing the other forms of cricket. An over is simply when 6 balls have been bowled. After each over, the bowler changes and the bowling takes place from the other end of the pitch. In test cricket, there are no limits on the number of overs a team may bat, but there are limits on the number of overs per day (96 in county cricket). The other forms have limited overs to get a result more quickly.

A day of Test cricket has 3 sessions of around 2 hours each. The first two sessions are split by a 40-minute lunch while the last session begins after a 20-minute tea break.

The winner of the Test match is the team with the most runs after each team has batted twice. A Test match is scheduled for a certain number of days, and if one team is still batting at the close of play on the final day (i.e. has not lost 10 wickets in their 2nd innings) then the result is a draw.

See? Simple!

County Cricket

Ancient England was divided into counties and it is these historic divisions that still apply in county cricket. There are three competitions that are contested by 18 first-class teams. The important one is the County Championship in which 4-day test matches are played. In this competition, the 18 teams are divided into two divisions. Each team plays a home-and-away round robin for 16 total tests. The bottom two teams in division 1 are relegated and replaced by the top two teams in division 2. The point system is unique: 16 points for a win; 8 for a tie; 3 for a draw, and 0 for a loss. There are also bonus points for scoring runs and taking wickets, but only in the first innings. You might have noticed that a tie and a draw are different; a tie is when both teams score the same number of runs and are all out while a draw is when play ends and the batting team still has wickets.

The match I watched was a Division 2 encounter with Middlesex, the county that originally included the City of London, hosting Derbyshire, located in the East Midlands. Middlesex lost their first 4 matches this season, giving them their worst start in 140 years. Last week they defeated first-place Sussex to move out of last place. Their big name is Andrew Strauss, the English Test captain. That's him on the left below, walking to the nursery for some practice with Daniel Evans.

Derbyshire were lying second in the table with 2 wins and a draw. Their star may be Robin Peterson, who is famous for giving up a record 28 runs to Brian Lara in a Test match over.

Lord's Cricket Ground

Last week I wrote that Craven Cottage was old. As the British might say, "Pshaw"! Lord's Cricket Ground was first established in 1787 and the current ground has been in use since 1814. It may be the oldest sporting venue still in use. It is owned by the Marylebone Cricket Club and the home ground of Middlesex.

It is located near St. John's Wood tube station on the Jubilee line. For those of you with a musical bent, Abbey Road Studios is nearby and you can see the iconic crosswalk that featured on the cover of the Beatles' final album.

The field is surrounded by several stands. None of these are particularly special, but there are two buildings that you will notice. The first is the pavilion (shown above), where the members are allowed to sit. It was built in 1889 and contains the changing rooms as well as dining facilities for the members. Directly opposite is the media center (below), built in 1999 and resembling a spaceship. It is quite the contrast between these two buildings and illustrates just how much architecture has changed in a century.

The rest of the stands have two levels - most were constructed in the late 1900's as the entire ground underwent a large-scale renovation. Below is the Warner Stand which is in the northwest corner of the ground.

The Warner Stand

The most interesting feature of Lord's is the slope of the field. From one corner to the other the vertical difference is a remarkable 8 feet! It is quite noticeable from ground level and affects the bowling as a bounced ball behaves differently depending on which direction the bowler is running.

The stadium holds 30,000 fans but on this day there were only 300, so I tried sitting in a variety of different locations. With the pitch in the middle of the field, there is no one section that is really close to the action. I preferred the Tavern Stand which is down low and let's you talk to the fielders when they are playing near the boundary.

However, many fans chose the Edrich Stand next to the Media Center which gives a better view of the movement of the balls. The view from here is below.

There's a museum on site which I'll talk about in another post. There's also plenty of other buildings, restaurants, offices, etc. Lord's is more than just a sporting venue, it's the home of cricket and it acts as such.

For this match though, much of it was closed. There were a couple of food stands open and as usual I had a pie which I'd recommend. But it would be much better to see a match there when the ground is filled with people.

There's much more I could write, but this post is already too long, so suffice to say that visiting Lord's is something every sports fan should do. They give tours as well so if there's no match, drop by and sign up.

The Match

This was day 2 of a 4-day scheduled match. On day 1 Derbyshire had batted for the full day, scoring 190 runs for 9 wickets. It didn't take long for Middlesex to get the 10th wicket as Mark Footitt sliced a weak ball that was easily taken by Middlesex captain Shaun Udal. Footitt's weak effort is shown below.

Derbyshire finished at 196 and after a short interval in which the pitch was cleaned up, Middlesex began their batting. It started very slowly as first batter Scott Newman missed the first ball and it hit is pad. The Derbyshire fielders immediately asked the umpire for lbw and it was awarded. Newman was out without scoring a run on the first ball. This is known as a Golden Duck and is the most humiliating event in the game. Newman slowly trudged off the field as his day was over.

The next two batters, Strauss and Owais Shah, notched a few runs but were still out relatively quickly as Middlesex slumped to 3-56. But this brought Neil Dexter to the crease (up to bat) and he started to turn things around. First, Dexter and Dawid Malan combined for a partnership of 49 before Malan was caught out on a Footitt delivery. Footitt soon got John Simpson lbw and Middlesex were 126-5. Gareth Berg joined Dexter at bat and that is when things got going. Dexter first made his 50 (an innings of 50 runs for a batter is known as a half-century or half-ton) and saluted the small crowd. Gradually the two batsmen built a solid partnership of 100 to give Middlesex the lead. But they didn't stop there. Derbyshire couldn't find a proper bowling line and both Dexter and Berg became more aggressive. Berg notched his own 50 and the partnership totalled 150, giving Middlesex 276-5. A few minutes later Dexter had achieved his century which was noted on the scoreboard below.

Shortly thereafter Berg did the same to make it 300 runs. It was Berg's maiden first-class century and an impressive one as it was accomplished in exactly 100 balls. They added 28 more runs before Dexter popped up and was easily caught out. Still, the partnership totalled 202 runs and essentially won the game for Middlesex.

Berg got the century on this ball...and the overall score below

What was fascinating was how Dexter and Berg slowly built up the scores. Berg was extremely aggressive, knocking a four and 2 sixes in 3 consecutive balls to mark the turning point of the match. It was extremely cold and I was planning to leave but kept watching to see the milestones hit - first Berg's 50, then Dexter's ton, then Berg's, then the 200 partnership. The two of them batted for over 2.5 hours, which is the length of a fast-paced baseball game.

There were many other things that happened during the day's play, including Derbyshire's John Sadler (pictured below standing next to the boundary) chatting with me and other fans. He didn't say much other than to comment on the chilly weather but it was interesting nonetheless. I spent 7 hours watching the match and saw only 7 wickets, so batting was the order of the day. Still, it was well worth the trip to see such a historic venue and I hope to return for a match in better weather.

For a properly written account of the day's play, check out CricInfo's report.

Notes

It rained lightly after the day's play was called and I guess the wicket was affected as Wednesday's play saw 14 wickets taken. Middlesex was all out for 374 and then Derbyshire was quickly put down for a feeble reply of 143. Middlesex therefore won by an innings and 35 runs, as they did not have to bat a second time. This is a blowout in cricket and means that day 4 wasn't required.

The 20/20 World Cup is taking place right now in the West Indies. England thrashed Sri Lanka on Thursday to make it to the final against either Australia or Pakistan who play Friday. I prefer the Test version as the wickets are more meaningful, but I think that this shorter version of the game might appeal to North American sports fans. A match takes just over 3 hours and is high-scoring. The main problem would be finding cities that could create reasonable cricket grounds. The Rogers Centre was once used to hold a match between India and Pakistan, so maybe other baseball stadiums can be modified as well. Something to think about during the next MLB strike.

Next Up

I'd like to see Wembley but FA Cup tickets on the secondary market are far too expensive. However, the Blue Square Premier Conference Play-off Final is there on Sunday evening, so if it's not too cold, I might try to make that. Middlesex travel to the Brit Oval to take on bottom-feeders Surrey in County Championship action next week; I don't want to spend another freezing 7 hours but I might drop by for a couple of hours.

Then I'm flying back to LA on Wednesday and driving to Phoenix for the Jays series. The Suns are in the conference finals against the Lakers and game 3 has just been set for Sunday evening after the baseball game. So it looks to be a two-sports doubleheader that day! I can't wait for the sunshine.

Best,

Sean

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