To the Oval!… on Sunday morning for the first day of Surrey’s championship match against Hampshire. I say to the Oval with some caveats. It was a rail replacement service. What could possibly go wrong?
It didn’t seem that bad on paper. The railway replacement was only from Wivenhoe to Sunny Colch, and then we could pick up the usual Liverpool Street train.
We rocked up at the rendezvous for the railway replacement, only to find a growing crowd of restless locals waiting for an AWOL bus. Oh dear.
The bus finally arrived. It was an interesting short journey. It was punctuated by a young lady in front of us with her head in a paper bag, constantly throwing up.
This seemed to trigger off another fellow traveller who was also feeling a little under the weather. Soon the bus had the cacophony of chundering passengers: one to the left of us and one to the right. It was almost a competition for seeing who could out chunder each other.
The air conditioning then kicked in, sucking up and distributing the smell of fresh sick down the entire aisle of the bus. It was meritocratic, if nothing else.
Don’t you just love rail replacement journeys?
But anyway. The cricket. This was an interesting one. Surrey have been shouting their heads off ever since the winter around the arrival of a new overseas spinner in time for this match. Much like the rail replacement service, the key component here was AWOL.
It turns out that Surrey are piss poor in getting a visa in place. We desperately need to spin it to win it, but that’s not great when your overseas signing still isn’t in the country.
The scheduling for the first day was also a weird one. This was the only round of championship matches starting on Sunday. It seems that Surrey have had their game pushed forward by the ECB in order to allow a little extra time for the Oval wicket to recover ahead of the Oval Test match next week.
This should be no big deal, but the weather forecast looks like it will penalise Surrey. Even before the first ball was bowled, this game had draw written all over it.
Ambassador Cruise Line were out in force with their usual spin the wheel to win a hat. No option of winning a cruise, not that I would want one anyway. Being stuck on a boat with 5,000 other people for a fortnight is my idea of hell. Shall we finally watch some cricket?
I blagged myself into the pavilion. I had one mission: to snaffle up a Surrey Year Book. Mission achieved. That will be straight on ebay in the morning.
We chose a strategic positioning of the OCS stand right in front of Archbishop Tennyson. This is not our usual seating of choice. Being on the piss in the Peter May seemed to be something of a wind tunnel.
As we entered the OCS we were hit by the full-on Sunday best splendour of a local gospel church congregation entering underneath the stand. Praise be to the ‘rrey.
Surrey won the toss and put Hampshire into bat. Steady progress was made with the Skipper and the Vicar of Sibley. And then up stepped South African bowler Potgieter, who smashed Rory’s furniture all over the ground. Oh Rory.
Will Jacks was the surprise choice to come in at number three. The plan for Surrey seemed to be to pile up the runs and get some batting points ahead of the expected poor weather over the coming days.
Luncheon was taken early - by me not the players. I felt incredibly peckish and didn’t hold back in demolishing a reduced-price cheese and baked bean pasty. I also had the urge to start BOOZING before midday but managed to resist.
Jacks fell incredibly cheaply for 10. He was caught at square with a half-arsed shot. That kind of stroke doesn’t get you back in the Test match squad.
Luncheon came. We disappeared to the back of the Harleyford Road for a game of table tennis. It was all going well until a ball got ricocheted over into a nearby estate.
Over the river at HQ and the Test match had finished early. This led to a mass exodus across the river as the Egg and Bacon Brigade descended upon the peasants at the Oval to catch an afternoon of proper cricket. Oh how the other half live.
The big wicket of Sibley fell shortly after lunch. The fellow was caught plumb and had to head back to the hutch after an impressive 39.
The sun threatened to break through for the afternoon session. Certainly not threatening but actually delivering was Dan Lawrence at the crease of Surrey.
His 100 came after 99 balls in what was a glorious knock. It was apt timing that he was rewarded with his Surrey cap just ahead of the evening session.
A superb double century then followed for Lawrence, the first double hundred of his first-class career. The Oval rose to its feet in recognition of an amazing feat. I opened up a bottle of a Lidl cheapo beer.
Curran went cheaply, only to be replaced by… Curran. Keep it in the family, etc. It’s a shame that the two brothers couldn’t get to bat together in what would have been a rare championship appearance with both at the crease.
It then got rather cold. The flood lights came on. Surrey lost 5 wickets for 28, including Dan Lawrence for a fine 218, a career record.
We made the strategic move back into the pavilion for the final five overs or so. It was so bloody freezing out there. The Umps took them off for bad light. We cut our losses and headed back to LS.
The final leg of the journey once again involved the dreaded replacement rail service between Sunny Colch and Weird Wiv. I was five pints down. Steady the buffers.
The driver had helpfully placed plastic bags next to each seat. Although I was personally not guilty, I suspect the positioning was a direct response after the lively earlier morning trip.
An eventful day.
