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| Scorecard: | Lancashire v Middlesex |
| Other links: | Day 1, Day 2, Day 4 |
Anyone who suffered a poor nights sleep before the start of play on the third day of this match, were given an ideal chance to close their eyes and not miss any action. Never can a morning session have been more desperate to watch. The visitors field placings were negative, their bowling woeful, and their time wasting utterly blatant . Put simply, Middlesex's desire to chase victory was completely devoid - no wonder cricket sometimes gets a reputation for being boring.
During the first session, Middlesex bowled 40 overs - highly commendable one would think. Wrong! Chris Peploe bowled persistently on, or outside the leg stump forcing umpire Clarkson to call wide on several occasions for negative bowling. No wonder that Lancashire only managed to strike 5 boundaries in the first session. Loye and Law added 99 for the third wicket before Law (49) played back to one which turned in sharply. He never waited for the umpires finger to be raised (288-3).
Carl Hooper scored just four runs before cutting the ball into his middle stump (300-4). The quality of his batting is a shadow of that last year. His ability to dominate the bowler has seemingly disappeared, and his forcing stroke play has become but a distant memory. Alec Swann batted well in the 17 overs up to lunch. He struck three excellent cover drives. Mal Loye reached 84 not out playing a very uncharacteristic rear guard innings (343-4).
Middlesex finally elected to take the new ball in the 126th over with Lancashire 358 for 4. Seven overs and 15 runs later, the scoreboard was transformed to read 373 for 8. Alec Swann (34) could class himself unlucky - the ball staying very low as it removed his off stump (370-5). Rather than safely negotiating the 130th over and preventing the visitors from collecting their second bowling point, Glen Chapple (1) wafted his bat at a wide ball from Lance Klusener, offering a straight forward catch to David Nash. Surely common sense would have dictated that you prevent your main rivals from collecting points (371-6). Having been stuck on 98 for a considerable time, Mal Loye drove a wide ball to Ed Joyce fielding at point - a really fantastic effort (373-7). Sajid Mahmood only lasted 4 balls before returning to the pavilion with nothing to his name - leg before wicket to Hayward.
Hegg and Keedy batted together for nearly fourteen overs, in which time they added 43 vital runs. Hegg batted with enormous common sense. He was desperate to build a lead, no matter how small. He eventually fell for 34 sweeping Dalrymple to Weekes at short fine leg (416-9). In the following over, Anderson (1) was bowled by Peploe to leave Lancashire 417 all out - leading by 35 runs. An early tea was taken at 4pm.
Sven Koenig's second innings only lasted seven balls before Anderson repeated his first dismissal (8-1). Shah and Hutton added 109 runs with the minimum of fuss as the day came to a close. Anderson, now bowling from the Brian Statham end, summoned up the energy to bowl the final over. Much to everyone's surprise, Hutton (41) fell leg before wicket with two official balls left (117-2). Although Middlesex led by 82 by the close, one assumes this match will end a draw, especially bearing in mind the poor weather forecast for the final day.
(Article: Copyright © 2004 Neil Adams http://www.cricketimages.co.uk/adams-report/intro.html)
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