All aboard the Essex Fun Train on Tuesday morning. We were bound for The Oval, and a key match for Surrey in the Metro Bank as they had a head-to-head shootout with Notts to see who would qualify for the next stage of the competition. ho
But wait! What’s this? Half the carriage on the Essex Fun Train wasn’t wearing the proud three feathers of the ‘rrey, but instead those rather intimidating three blades that make up the Essex badge.
Oh I see. The Essex slappers also at home at Chelmsford. Best to keep my mouth shut for the train journey until all the good owd Essex boys had departed half an hour or so later. I think I had the better half of the deal for the day out.
I actually dozed off in between Chelmsford and Stratford. I thought I would get the forty winks in whilst I could ahead of what could possibly be a challenging day on the field - and on the piss - in the Peter May.
But first, how about something a little more sedate? I’m all for breaking routines and trying new things. And so instead of making a beeline to Peter May we instead chose the rather tranquil atmosphere of the Bedsar. Blimey.
It must be over 15 years since I’ve last sat here. We always view it on the other side of the ground, as the absolutely no-fun old boy duffers stand. There’s usually around five people in there at max. The South London sun trap that is the Oval somehow manages to cast a heavy shadow over the Bedsar.
It was all very relaxed in there, with what seemed like the Bedsar being boosted by fellow shade seekers. A cursory glance around however, and we realised that it was also BOOZE free.
Oh dear.
The calculations for the final round of group matches in the Peter May required a GCSE in mathematics to understand the different permutations throughout the day. Put simply, Surrey had to win in order to progress.
The selection of J-Roy for his first List A match in seven years seemed to prove the point. The Surrey coaches knew that at least a couple of players needed to ramp up pressure on the scoreboard.
It was also interesting to see Worrall back at his County after playing for his horrid 100 franchise shitty team the night before.
Surrey started incredibly strongly with The Vicar and Patel at the crease. Unlike the fuck up away at Somerset on Friday, the skipper had learnt that when you win a toss in this competition, you bat first and put the bowling team under pressure.
Young Ahmed for Notts was struggling at first with his spin. Rhino twatted him for a glorious six ahead of making a superb Oval century. I bloody love a bit of Rhino. He’s perhaps just lacking a little to step up for the Championship, but he’s a bloody good player for list A games.
Sadly he fell a few balls later on a fine 102.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man. You could visibly feel and hear the nerves around the old ground. Now would not be a good time for J-Roy to fuck things up.
Two runs later and he was back in the hutch. See you again in seven years J-Roy.
The skipper fared little better. We actually missed his incredibly short time at the crease as we got bored with the no fun Bedsar and headed back round to go on the piss with the Peter May boys.
Walking around the back corridors of the Oval was interesting. It’s here where the multi-faith room is located. There is also what Surrey call a chill room. I felt slightly triggered by what I had just seen from J-Roy and contemplated a little personal time out myself.
I remarked to my cricketing companions, once we had repositioned ourselves back in the Peter May, that it was down to The Vicar to really put the pressure on Notts. He was out next ball, natch.
Young Ahmed had now found his stride for Notts. We still found his Haka style positioning ahead of his run up slightly comical.
Also doing it for the kids was young Thomas and Sykes for Surrey. They put on a decent partnership together but it still didn’t look enough runs on the board for what was to come.
The interval came. Surrey finished on 296. I took this as an opportunity to do a little more exploration on such a fine sunshine Transpontine day. I headed up to my fave place in the entire ground on the top tier of the SSE.
Who needs a chill room when you have such a splendid location in which to take in all of South London? SHOUT OUT to the yoga dude who had found his own personal chill space on some of the top tier astroturf and was going through his stretches.
This seemed like a pretty much even game ahead of the restart. What was clear was that Notts needed a decent partnership to match what The Vicar and Patel had put together for Surrey.
What was needed from me was a more mature approach to my drinking. The lesson learnt from today was don’t buy cheapo BOOZE from Home Bargains that tastes like piss.
The rest of the afternoon disappeared in something of a haze. My one memory was mistaking a very strange-looking yellow pigeon for a South London parakeet. At this stage of the afternoon Surrey were very much a dead parrot in cricketing terms.
The game came to a very abrupt end when Notts piled on the pressure with some ease and pretty much batted out a T20 innings to get them over the line.
