The last few weeks have been quite boring for this humble scribe to say the least. With the football and ice hockey closed seasons in full swing, and the NFL lockout showing no sign of ending its been quite hard to find things to blog about. However cricket has managed to come to the rescue as on Thursday night Baz and myself headed off to watch the mighty Nottinghamshire Outlaws take on the Durham Dynamos in the T20 cup at Trent Bridge. Despite being a cricket fan all my life and a 4 year playing career with the Gentleman of Lound Hall cricket club (where nine NOT OUT was my highest score) i had never been to a first class game. So it was time to rectify that.
We left Retford a little after 4.30pm, as you would expect traffic was heavy at that time of day, and we pulled up in Nottingham a little after 6.00pm. The area was quite busy as in addition to the cricket going on, Nottingham Forest had released their new shirt the same day and the club shop was open late thus there were quite a few people walking about with plastic bags emblazoned with the Forest logo, i can't quite see Lincoln getting this response when our new shirts are released. For those who don't know Nottingham both football grounds and Trent bridge home of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club are pretty close together (less that half a mile). The main buzz listening to the various conversations on the walk up to the grounds was the Carling Cup draw that has paired Nottingham Forest with Notts County. It will interesting to see if Notts run buses to the City ground. It would be worth ringing up just to check.
We collected our tickets and then went in search of a kebab. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that you pretty much have a free hand as to where you want to sit inside of Trent Bridge, with only the members area (Cricket's name for season ticket holders) and the upper level of the stand behind the Radcliffe Road end being out of bounds. You are also free to take food into the ground which is very handy if you have a large lamb donner from
Trent spice to eat. Once inside the ground the contrast to football is huge. There is an excellent range of food with a burger bar, jacket potato stall and a mobile pizza express wagon all serving fare that looked far superior to what you get inside most football grounds.
The programme was £2.50 and covered the first 5 home matches in the T20. You also got a a free scorecard which i didn't fill in but it was helpful for identifying the players. I also collected two free pairs of those annoying plastic things that you bang together to make noise, these do add to the atmosphere in the IPL (Indian premier league) but sounded a bit out of place on a cool overcast evening in Nottingham. Free cards with a 4 on one side and a 6 on the other side were also being given away for free so i bagged a couple of those as well.
As we munched our fodder the teams tossed up. Notts won and chose to bat first. This being a part floodlit match it is seen to be an advantage to bat first in the natural light and let the other side bat "under the lights" Notts skipper David Hussey said the plan was to pile on the runs and put Durham under pressure. Before play Notts were top of the northern group and had only lost one match in the competition so far; that being at third placed Durham on Tuesday evening. The Outlaws were out for revenge and that's exactly what they got.
Notts openers AD Hales and WH Wessels started to dismantle the Durham bowling right from the start with 14 runs coming from the first over alone. It was at this point that the novelty of waving the "4" card whenever a boundary was scored began to wear off. At the end of the Power play (Six overs) when the fielding restrictions applied Notts had raced on to 58-1 with Wessels the only man out.
Hales was in fine form an even an injury didn't halt his progress. He was unable to run so a runner was called which you don't often see in cricket these days. He eventually went for 67 but it didn't hold Notts up as Voges at number three added a quick fire 39. Notts skipper "Mr Cricket" David Hussey smashed an unbeaten 54. Patel added 10 with former England wicket keeper Chris Reed unbeaten on 4 with Hussey at the end. The whole innings had been a great example of attacking cricket with seven 6's (Four of them from Hussey including the last ball of the innings) and 20 4's. The Nottinghamshire outlaws had scored 213/4 setting Durham an imposing victory total of 214 to win. A very tough ask. We had planned to move around the ground but as we had got pretty good seats with a great view at mid wicket we chose to stay where we were. Plenty of beer was being drunk around us but it was a tad to chilly for me to partake. Maybe next time. The weather report had called for showers and the clouds did gather at the interval but thankfully the rain held off.
Durham are no mugs and in Onions, Plunkett, and Collingwood they have quality players with bags of England experience. Notts England stars Broad and Swann were watching it piss it down on the first day of the test match between England and Sri Lanka. Durham would have to attack straight from the start if they were going to make a game of it and that's exactly what they did. The opening pair gave them a decent platform and it looked as if they may give Notts a good run for their money. However Notts had other ideas; Patel gave a great display of containing bowling while Mullany ripped through the Durham top order reducing them to 69/5. They did steady the ship a little later on but fell well behind the required run rate. In the end Notts bowled them out for 159 in 19.3 overs. giving Notts a win by 54 runs.
I thoroughly enjoyed my first trip to the cricket and can thoroughly recommend it. For £15 its great value for money and the facilities at Trent Bridge are fantastic. We are hopefully going back in a few weeks so lets hope Notts keep up the good form. There are some things that can get a bit annoying like the blasting out of music between the overs although playing Eliza Doolittle's "Pack up" when a Durham wicket fell was amusing. All in all its a great way to pass a few hours.
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