Date-stamped : 21 Aug95 - 22:27 CC: Middlesex v Kent, Lord's, 17-21 August 1995 ====> Day 1, 17 Aug 95 Gatting keeps on trucking to hit hundred mark By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Lord`s First day of four: Middlesex (362-5) v Kent THE Middlesex juggernaut swept irresistibly forward here yester- day, though their progress on a very easy-paced pitch slowed down once the main driver had handed over to his assistants. Mike Gat- ting, brawny forearms and all, was at the wheel of his favourite lorry for nearly four-and-a-half hours, and the destination was never in doubt. His 136, typically forthright and produced from an unpromising start at 26 for two, was his fourth hundred in his last five in- nings for Middlesex and has laid a base for a possible seventh successive championship victory. Four of the previous six wins have come batting first and the formula could easily be repeated because Gatting had further luck with the toss and the pitch is almost white, a sharp contrast, indeed, to an outfield which, un- like most in the country, is still a vivid green. On the other hand, the ball did not turn significantly for Kent`s three spinners and if Kent are in a mood to bat with resolution, this should be a genuine four-day match. First they must complete the job of bowling out Middlesex, a task which will be less easy for the fact that one of their opening bowlers, Dean Headley, cannot bowl for the rest of the innings. He trespassed on an area four feet from the popping crease once too often for the liking of the umpire, Trevor Jesty, and was taken off after bowling 20 overs and taking two for 74. He had just dismissed John Carr leg before, after a partnership with Gatting worth 73, and his replacement, Martin McCague, promptly dismissed Gatting the same way. Gatting hit with immense power through the covers off either foot, giving himself room to punish anything not on a perfect length With two for 55 on a pitch giving him nothing once a little early moisture had dried out, McCague was the best of Kent`s bowlers, and the unluckiest, but it would be surprising if he did enough to raise the eyebrows of the watching selector Fred Titmus, or his assistant, Brian Bolus. Still, he is Kent`s highest wicket- taker this season now, and he has been making his selection for the tour to Australia look less of an aberration than it did to some. McCague`s virtue is that by pitching the ball up, sometimes too far, he gives it every chance to swing. It was not a day for bowlers, however, especially since Gatting and Jason Pooley, the other main contributor to the total, were both dropped early in their stand of 189. Headley had trapped Paul Weekes lbw on the front foot in the fourth over, and McCague picked up the prolific Mark Ramprakash off bat and pad at short- leg - a good, low catch by David Fulton - so the misses were im- portant, though neither was simple. Pooley, when 12, cut Headley hard to Cowdrey`s left hand in the gully; Gatting, when 14, looped a square-cut to cover where Min Patel dived to his left but the ball popped out. Retribution was severe. Gatting hit with immense power through the covers off either foot, giving himself room to punish any- thing not on a perfect length. Occasionally he came down the wicket to thump a spinner over long-off, notably Patel for six. Later he hooked Headley and McCague with utter certainty. Despite his sore finger and the slowness of the pitch, he hit 18 fours. Yet twice he might have run himself out and he blighted his 88th first-class hundred and his 71st for Middlesex by calling Pooley for a third run when 99, only to run his partner out for 95 as Trevor Ward threw hard from the backward-point boundary. Pooley is having a marvellous season and deserved his fifth cham- pionship hundred. He plays straight and he, too, hits it hard, as four fours in one over from Steven Herzberg showed. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com) ====> Day 2, 18 Aug 95 De Silva makes Middlesex fight for supremacy By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Lord`s Second day of four: Kent (205-5) trail Middlesex (410) by 205 runs THEY may not be the only county doing so, but Middlesex are play- ing like prospective county champions. We are talking of a county who, if they gain maximum points from this and their remaining matches, must win the title. Furthermore, a county who have max- imum bowling points in every game this season; further, further- more a county who have already won or shared nine championships since the war, and seven since 1976. Ten titles since 1947 would put them ahead even of Surrey and Yorkshire. It needed a high-class Test batsman playing as responsibly as he can, yet still requiring some luck, to keep Kent in the match on a pitch which remains very slow but which has nonetheless reward- ed exceptional effort from the bowlers. There were several in that category yesterday: Martin McCague put in another honest 11-over spell at the start of the day; Phil Tufnell bowled 25 overs unchanged during which he claimed three wickets for 50; and Angus Fraser`s eight-over spell late in the day, when he reverse-swung the ball repeatedly past the outside edge, was ex- emplary. Middlesex cannot afford to start dreaming of flying the pennant again yet; and for as long as Aravinda de Silva is still batting, not even of winning this game. Once Trevor Ward had been given out leg-before to Tufnell after making an accomplished 59, in the last over before tea, only de Silva, and later an obdurate Steve Marsh, detained the varied and constantly threatening attack for long. Neither Richard Johnson nor Dion Nash took a wicket, but both might have done. Mike Gatting supported his bowlers with close fielders, some as loquacious as they were predatory (are not cats, the ultimate predators, silent as they go for a kill?) and there were frequent demands on the judgment of umpires Julian and Jesty. De Silva and Marsh, however, have so far held up Middlesex`s progress for 85 minutes. De Silva`s has been a watchful, skilful but uncharacter- istically cautious innings. He has been batting more than three hours and two glorious straight sixes in succession off John Emburey, smitten into the pavilion from a pace-and-a-half down the pitch, represented his only purple passage. De Silva was dropped off Emburey at backward point by Tufnell when 14, and again when 42 at first slip by Emburey off Fraser. If he gets a start this morning an eighth hundred of the season beckons and when de Silva prospers, so, as often as not, do Kent. On the other hand, they have not yet saved the follow-on. Middlesex were indebted in the morning to Keith Brown for a typi- cally useful 53 before Marsh caught him brilliantly down the leg side. Mark Ealham had picked up Nash with a ball nipping sharply back up the hill. The Kent response began austerely, Ward and David Fulton scoring at under two an over before Fraser found Fulton`s outside edge, but Ward hooked and drove with authority before, pushing well forward, he was lbw, one of the many confident appeals which was allowed. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com) ====> Day 3, 19 Aug 95 Fraser faces up to demanding test of stamina Scyld Berry argues that `second home` can settle Middlesex`s championship fate Third day of four: Kent (265 & 37-2) trail Middlesex (410 & 201) by 309 runs IMMEDIATELY after the climax to the international season that is the Sixth Test, Angus Fraser might not feel like a showdown cham- pionship match the following day. But he will find it difficult to deny Middlesex when the title could rest on the outcome. The match between Middlesex and Northamptonshire, which starts on Tuesday week, will be akin to a semi-final for this season`s Bri- tannic Assurance Championship. The winners of this game will con- test the title with the other `semi-finalists`, who are almost certain to be Warwickshire, rather than Lancashire. With four matches remaining for each of the four chief contenders after this round, Middlesex will have their fate in their own hands if they can bowl out Kent tomorrow for less than 347, and thereby go top. But the interesting complication is that when they play their last two home matches, they will not have fate in their own hands on their traditional home ground. Were Middlesex to play Northamptonshire and Leicestershire at Lord`s, they would be favoured to continue their excellent home run: assuming they polish off Kent, they will have won five of their seven matches at Lord`s. But the two to come will both be at Uxbridge, normally a high, even huge-scoring ground. "Our number of matches at Lord`s has run out," said Middlesex`s secretary Joe Hardstaff yesterday. After the NatWest Trophy final on the first Saturday of September, MCC`s groundsman wants all the time he can get to put his square in order. Hence a second game at Uxbridge, where the tendency is either towards draws or declaration matches - and declarations in the Middlesex-Northants fixture are not liable to be `sporting`. Middlesex have no distractions like the Sunday League or NatWest Trophy. They retain their special brand of creative dressing-room tension. They have a full hand of wicket-taking bowlers, and if Dion Nash has not been prolific, he dismissed Aravinda de Silva with his second ball yesterday - the Sri Lankan falling across his stumps to play to midwicket - and nipped out Martin McCague with the second new ball. Northamptonshire meanwhile have their NatWest final to think about, as well as their `semi-final` against Middlesex. Lan- cashire have the Sunday League to consider; three of their remaining matches are away; and Wasim Akram is expected to miss the last two as Pakistan meet Sri Lanka in three Tests starting on Sept 8. No doubt Warwickshire`s players do not see their involvement in the Sunday League run-in and NatWest final as distractions, but as grist to their insatiable mill. Having walked over Not- tinghamshire, they have three winnable games at Edgbaston, and a finale at Canterbury, by when de Silva will be engaged in the Tests. Yesterday morning Middlesex again maintained their miraculous record of taking full bowling points in every match so far. If Middlesex had dismissed Kent for five runs less than 265, they would still not have enforced the follow-on. It is not as if there is snow, or even a rain-drop, forecast for tomorrow. But in building upon their lead of 145, Middlesex`s batsmen were perhaps a little too relaxed, and they needed some late welly from John Emburey, 43 today, and a season`s highest from Fraser. Paul Weekes has not become an opening batsman yet; and Min Patel appreciated the dry turf once he had switched to the Nursery end. Nigel Llong contributed a fine left-handed slip catch, and some off breaks after Steve Herzberg had hurt his hand while fielding. But at least Middlesex`s second innings allowed their bowlers a break, and they nipped out a couple of wickets in the final hour after their rest. If the Sixth Test goes the distance, and Fraser then tackles Northants, he will play nine intense days in a row, in an August not noted for frost or cool. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@*ogi.edu) ====> Day 4, 21 Aug 95 Middlesex taken to the summit by Tufnell By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Lord`s Middlesex (410 & 201) beat Kent (265 & 206) by 140 runs MIDDLESEX duly kept their almost unstoppable momentum going in their final match of the season at Lord`s. By 2.45 on yet anoth- er hot afternoon, thanks in the final phase largely to the fact that Phil Tufnell was bowling in the sort of form which has been known to win Test matches, they completed a 140-run win over Kent. It gives them a lead of five points over Warwickshire and eight over Northamptonshire, with four matches each to play. On a dry pitch, the ball was turning and bouncing for Tufnell from the Nursery End and for Emburey from the pavilion: there was no realistic escape for Kent. Aravinda de Silva dutifully got his head down for the second time in the match and so long as he was batting there was always at least a theoretical chance that Kent might make the 337 required. But Tufnell bowled too well, in the end, even for de Silva and when Jason Pooley snapped him up off bat and pad three overs after lunch it became only a matter of time. Tufnell took four for 11 in 38 balls at one stage on his way to five for 76. He is the county`s leading wicket-taker this season now, with 57 victims at a cost of 20 runs each, and he has been recalled to the Test team at a time when he is expecting a wicket off every ball. If England do not want him in their final XI at the Oval on Thursday, Middlesex might be advised to arrange a plane to Leeds if it will get him to Headingley any quicker. He could, in fact, be badly missed in that match, one of two po- tentially awkward away games still facing Middlesex. This was their seventh win in a row and they have won all but two of their championship games at Lord`s this season. A draw against Derbyshire and a heavy defeat by Lancashire, have been the only aberrations. Graham Cowdrey came down the pitch like Victor Trumper to hit Tufnell back over his head It is ironic that Lancashire, who seemed, until beaten by Yorkshire at Old Trafford yesterday, to be the fourth horse in the race, have now virtually dropped out despite having beaten each of the leading three. The Middlesex versus Northamptonshire match at Uxbridge, starting immediately after the Oval Test next Tuesday, has now duly as- sumed its anticipated importance. To see it as a sort of gunfight at OK Corral would be an exaggeration, because a rival stands by with loaded barrel in the form of the title holders, Warwickshire and also because seven of the 11 championship games at Uxbridge since 1989 have been drawn. Assuming the absence of Tufnell, Middlesex will be anxious that Richard Johnson, who came into the Kent match as a possible con- tender for the sixth Test himself but who took only one wicket against them, has recovered from pain in the lower back by Thurs- day and that Keith Brown is able to bat and keep wicket with freedom despite having broken a finger. It did not seem to bother him yesterday, but then Brown is almost as tough as his captain. Gatting gave Angus Fraser and Dion Nash a few overs each before turning to the likely matchwinners and Fraser obliged by swinging a ball back into the pads of the left-handed Nigel Llong as he attempted a wristy stroke well in front of his pads. Graham Cowdrey came down the pitch like Victor Trumper to hit Tufnell back over his head but an attempted reprise off Emburey was less successful and when Mark Ealham dragged a long-hop to mid-off and Tufnell spun a ball to hit Steve Marsh on the back leg, only de Silva threatened. Kent, in fact, lasted a further 20 overs after his departure, Dean Headley hitting four fours in his 37 and Martin McCague heaving Emburey into the Tavern Stand. But one by one they headed for the Long Room. Middlesex have now dropped only one point since the middle of June. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@*ogi.edu)