I catch up with the County Champions
I finally managed to see some live cricket today, for the first time since the thrilling victory over Hampshire which paved the way for our Championship title in September. Unfortunately Lancashire weren't really playing like champions in this match - or not yesterday, anyway.
I'd decided to go on Sunday, the final day, because the online forecast suggested it was going to rain all day on Saturday and not very much on Sunday. They turned out to be right about Sunday, in the end, but there was a pretty full day's play yesterday... in which Warwickshire recovered from 81 for seven thanks to an eighth-wicket stand of 224 between Darren Maddy and Rikki Clarke. And then Lancashire collapsed to 44 for four that evening, so we suddenly went from expecting to make them follow on to facing an innings defeat.
I wasn't really hoping to see much cricket after travelling back to Aigburth on a wet and gloomy morning. This was the scene when I arrived just after 11 a.m.
But it brightened up and the ground staff worked miracles so play started at 12.20.
It might have been better if it hadn't, as Lancashire lost a couple more wickets in the short session before lunch, though they did a little better afterwards and we got the target up to 70. Still not good.
I took the opportunity to photograph the Championship pennant flying over the Lancashire dressing-room, while we've got it. There were complaints at last week's AGM that the pennant wasn't flying during the opening match; Mike Watkinson said this was because the bit of string at the top of the pole was broken, and no one was willing to climb up the pole to fix it. Alan West said it was a bit more complicated and the pole itself was broken, though they then had the problem with the string after mending it... anyway, it's working now, and we hope Old Trafford will have a fully functional flagpole ready.
Spot the ball... This is Warwickshire chasing 70 to win.
Despite the bright sunshine now available, their batsmen made heavy weather of batting against the spin of Keedy and Kerrigan, but this is as good as it got for Lancashire; the next pair knocked off 19 runs to inflict our second successive defeat.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing cricket at Old Trafford again, which I haven't done since September 2010 because of our exile after the pitch was turned round. I hope to get there for the return of Championship cricket in early May, though I don't think I can manage the first couple of days because of the local elections.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.
I'd decided to go on Sunday, the final day, because the online forecast suggested it was going to rain all day on Saturday and not very much on Sunday. They turned out to be right about Sunday, in the end, but there was a pretty full day's play yesterday... in which Warwickshire recovered from 81 for seven thanks to an eighth-wicket stand of 224 between Darren Maddy and Rikki Clarke. And then Lancashire collapsed to 44 for four that evening, so we suddenly went from expecting to make them follow on to facing an innings defeat.
I wasn't really hoping to see much cricket after travelling back to Aigburth on a wet and gloomy morning. This was the scene when I arrived just after 11 a.m.
But it brightened up and the ground staff worked miracles so play started at 12.20.
It might have been better if it hadn't, as Lancashire lost a couple more wickets in the short session before lunch, though they did a little better afterwards and we got the target up to 70. Still not good.
I took the opportunity to photograph the Championship pennant flying over the Lancashire dressing-room, while we've got it. There were complaints at last week's AGM that the pennant wasn't flying during the opening match; Mike Watkinson said this was because the bit of string at the top of the pole was broken, and no one was willing to climb up the pole to fix it. Alan West said it was a bit more complicated and the pole itself was broken, though they then had the problem with the string after mending it... anyway, it's working now, and we hope Old Trafford will have a fully functional flagpole ready.
Spot the ball... This is Warwickshire chasing 70 to win.
Despite the bright sunshine now available, their batsmen made heavy weather of batting against the spin of Keedy and Kerrigan, but this is as good as it got for Lancashire; the next pair knocked off 19 runs to inflict our second successive defeat.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing cricket at Old Trafford again, which I haven't done since September 2010 because of our exile after the pitch was turned round. I hope to get there for the return of Championship cricket in early May, though I don't think I can manage the first couple of days because of the local elections.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.