Poor Pitches Or Poor Cricket?

 

 

Cricket 2014

 

T20 Blasted and the Indians, Drowned

 

June 28^th 2014

 

It has been a slow news day. The only dangers that the Indians faced at Leicester were of avoiding drowning. Deluge. Play abandoned for the day soon after lunch. Thanks for coming.

Elsewhere, fans have been trying to enjoy the NatWest T20 Blast. In mid-week, Middlesex put out a 2^nd XI attack including Steve Finn (an England player less than a year ago), Toby Roland-Jones (England Lions) and Ollie Rayner (England Lions). A side boasting such depth of talent, plus players such as Eoin Morgan and Dan Christian looks made for T20, right? Except that the paying spectators and TV viewers saw a game at Lords on Thursday night in which a makeshift Gloucestershire side struggled, thanks to a late surge, to 105 on a pitch that made strokeplay almost impossible. Rain caused the match to be abandoned but some pundits reckoned that Middlesex would have struggled to reach the target. The fears that 105 could be a winning score were not allayed when, last night, on a pitch at Hove where both sides wanted to bat first and the groundsman felt 160-180 was par, Middlesex staggered to 107 before Sussex rattled to their target with almost four overs to spare, but without overstressing themselves. It was not exactly the big-hitting, thrill a ball cricket that the public were promised, although pundits elsewhere saw a useful innings from some guy called "KP". At the same time, Gloucestershire were winning a thrilling game against Kent at Bristol, reaching their target of 151 from the last ball.

Poor pitches or poor play? It seems to be that a bit of both are involved. Either way, NatWest T20 Blast is, most definitely, not the IPL.