Returned as planned for the morning session to see the mouthwatering prospect of Finn and Collymore v. Cook and Bopara. This was to be a day for the bowlers though with sixteen wickets falling before my departure shortly before tea. With all ten of the Essex first innings wickets either bowled, lbw or caught behind, the grey overcast clouds seemed to be doing their work producing more swing than a 70s suburban dinner party. Focusing on Cook it was insightful to see the influence of his mentor Gooch on his fidgety awkward wait for the delivery before issuing a stroke. Not that there were many of those though in a brief innings of 19 in which he was also dropped at slip. His dismissal was the first of two in two balls for Collymore who surprising bowled a bouncer for the hat trick ball to Westley (maybe known as a hooker?). Westley went onto top score with 36 as his team mates fell around him with Murtagh and Berg wrapped up the tail just after lunch sending the scoreboard into meltdown. This remarkably gave Middlesex the opportunity to follow on something that must have seemed a remote prospect when just 24 hours earlier they were 115-5.
By this time I had returned to my favoured spectating position of the Warner upper. I had spent the morning on the pavilion middle balcony but couldn't take any more of the tortuous wooden seats. Can't they find some kind of leather/rubber substitute which looks aesthetically pleasing?
Meanwhile Billy Godleman completed a nightmare return to his alma mater by again falling for a low score as Gooch looked on from the away balcony with an even more hangdog expression than usual if that's possible. Cook and Mickleburgh looked to be on the road to recovery, particularly when Cook stroked two fluid cover drives in one over to take the score past 50. However once the Ashes hero had fallen to a brilliant caught and bowled effort from Finn it was calypso collapso time again as the score swiftly fell to 90-6 offering Middlesex the opportunity to wrap up the win in two days.
By the time I had got home Essex had avoided this possibility and that of an embarrassing innings defeat but with Middlesex needing just 53 for victory I'm left to mull over whether its worth popping into see the inevitable denouement before going onto the Magpies relegation play off at Thurrock.
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