Damn fine days entertainment!
(Well up until the last 3 balls
)
Atmosphere for the first game was good, bit of a knife edge for both fans as going out in semi final one pretty much spoils your day. Semi final 2 was odd, just felt very quiet. I guess of the 4 teams Durham would have had less supporters cheering for them and lets face it Middlesex fans are used to going to Lord's and we all know that you aren't allowed to have any fun there! But I expected more from their fans tbh. Perhaps it was the fact that Middlesex had 2 spinners who did a really good job of slowing down the scoring in the middle of the first innings, who knows.
Most importantly the Mascot race was a total travesty!! The second set of mascots were miles behind before they were allowed to start
Bumble was of course most amusing though so it made up for it. Did they show the Mascot dance off on TV? What an absolute pile of pants, would have rather have sat in silence for half an hour!! Here's hoping that never comes back. "Entertainment" this year appeared to have been supplied by Dave Double Decks and his mate, probably they were quite famous DJ's but they played about 5 songs and I'm pretty sure anyone could have done that. Having said that it was better than last years performance by Mutya from the Sugababes, although that wouldn't have been hard to top! An excellent piece of planning by the management saw the bars close for 1 hour between 4:30 and 5:30, not sure what that was all about but they could have chosen a time that wasn't during one of the breaks in play! Typical Rose Bowl organisation really. Don't get me started on the Park and Ride scheme but lets just say I was a lorry smack into a car because of the utter shambles that was created. How the hell the ECB can award test status to that ground is beyond me.
Final was a cracker, Kent lost it a bit in the field and didn't really give us much chance before the start of the second innings but all credit to Kemp who really came good for Kent after some well below par performances this season. Think this was one time where Kent's small squad really worked against them, Darren Stevens was obviously not fit but we still had to play him and it cost us in both matches as he usually plays a key roll in our bowling attack in one day matches, he did bowl a few overs but in reality Kent were a bowler light. Takes nothing away from Middlesex though, Henderson has obviously come a long way since he Played for us a couple of seasons ago that's for sure!
Oh well, there's always next year!
