Date-stamped : 05 Aug96 - 14:29 County Championship 1996 Middlesex v Essex Lord's, London 1, 2, 3 August 1996 ====> REPORT (Day 1, 1 Aug 1996) Carr lands TCCB role By Neville Scott at Lord`s First day of four: Essex (32-0) trail Middx (264) by 232 runs JOHN Carr, who is leading Middlesex for this game in Mike Gatting`s absence, was yesterday named as the TCCB`s cricket operations manager. Carr, 33, will retire as a player at the end of the season and be released from his county contract in order to take up his new role on Oct 1. As head of the cricket department, he will fill the role vacated by Tim Lamb, the newly-appointed chief executive. But his move came as a complete surprise to Middlesex and the post was not ad- vertised. Carr`s father, Donald, also a Reptonian and Oxford Blue, played twice for England before becoming TCCB secretary and now chairs the Pitches Committee. Gatting was beginning his four-week recuperation from knee sur- gery and in his absence Middlesex lost Paul Weekes and Mark Ram- prakash for their first championship ducks this summer in the opening 17 balls. In fact there was much spine in the subsequent fightback, flawed, in the end, by a familiar collapse of the tail. On that Lord`s rarity, a pitch of pace and steep lift with incentives for all, a good contest should still ensue. When Mark Ilott conceded a run with the last delivery of his new-ball spell, he had figures of 7-6-1-2. But Jason Pooley and Carr clenched jaws and fought on. Pooley, now averaging just 17.9, played determinedly straight and left everything wide until undone by lift after lunch. Carr made 66 before becoming the first victim in Ashley Cowan`s maiden four-wicket bag. The tail struggled against bounce and Keith Brown, reprieved on 27, was left unbowed but short of a telling total in the condi- tions. ====> REPORT (Day 2, 2 Aug 1996) Gooch overhauls Fletcher`s record By Neville Scott at Lord`s Second day of four: Essex (385-5) lead Middx (264) by 121 WITH an edged four after 20 minutes Graham Gooch made official, and probably unassailable, his status as Essex`s Grand Old Man. An aggregate 29,505 runs to date for the county, passing Keith Fletcher, makes him the most prolific scorer in the club`s 120- year history. Yet the calm, solid century offered by Paul Grayson, earmarked to replace Gooch as opener, had the match- winning weight. Expand- ing after tea against an evidently unfit Richard Johnson to the highest of three hundreds, Grayson brought the ballast which thunderous Essex innings can lack. The contrast, before a wicket fell six overs post-lunch, was acute. Gooch, still rolling forward with the inevitability of a Russian tank, fired fours and trundled singles to reach 92 in 156 balls. His treatment of Angus Fraser was poignantly brutal. Grayson, punctuating his correct Yorkshireman`s defence with clean, well placed off-drives, ensured dominance. After Gooch fell cutting, it was left to Phil Tufnell, bowling leg stump over the wicket, to claw back control. It is unsettling to see him unpartnered by John Emburey but, without Fagin, the Dodger remains artful. Tufnell might have had Grayson at slip and then removed Nasser Hussain from a top-edge sweep. Stuart Law went to an ungainly pull off Fraser seven overs later. But after tea, from a secure base, the onslaught. One eight-ball Jamie Hewitt over disappeared for 27 runs, Paul Prichard kicked violently forward and, though Grayson and Ronnie Irani fell to the untiring, luckless Fraser, Essex`s third successive champion- ship win should follow. ====> REPORT (Day 3, 3 Aug 1996) Middlesex fail to stand the pace Neville Scott at Lord`s Overnight: Middlesex 264 ,Essex 385-5 IT MIGHT be seen, perhaps, as a case of when the Gatt`s away announced, to Middlesex`s surprise, that he would retire in September to take Tim Lamb`s old secretarial job at the TCCB. Recognising a fait accompli, Middlesex acquiesced with good grace. It is typical of the club. A sound, well-planned transi- tion of a staff which started the summer with six squad members over 30 was already under way and need not be diverted by railing at inevitabilities. Rationally, they should now elevate Mark Ram- prakash over Carr. But worse followed. By the time Gatting had begun four weeks` re- cuperation, the only two top-order batsmen in real form this sea- son, Ramprakash and Paul Weekes, had each been dismissed twice in a combined total of 17 balls for a joint match contribution of naught. When Carr fell to change bowler Ashley Cowan`s fourth delivery in the second over after lunch yesterday, Middlesex, 48 for four, were still 124 runs from avoiding an innings defeat, duly sustained before tea. Hardly the most propitious context in which to talk of the county`s high quality club stewardship. Yet, in a championship season when Middlesex have used seven players who, in April, had five first-class appearances between them, this was the first time when things had gone really gravely wrong. Indeed, results have been appreciably better than paper ability would warrant. Defeat by Essex has realistically taken away the chance of a top-five place, but Middlesex have conceded that for two or three seasons honours may be elusive. Such rigorous as- sessment, also typical, implies not defeatism but strategic clar- ity. Change has also been hastened by injury to Dion Nash, now released as overseas player, and the departures of Micky Roseber- ry and John Emburey. Middlesex have always declined to join un- seemly scrambles for high-priced overseas stars, which should rule out Waqar Younis, while the likeliest replacement, Javagal Srinath, might not be available until late May next summer. Any rethink here will come with customary care. Care, alas, was flagrantly absent yesterday. After Middlesex had found the bounce they signally failed to exploit on Friday, tak- ing Essex`s last five wickets in 70 minutes, they themselves suc- cumbed in 38.3 overs. The pace and lift of Cowan, completing a career-best for the second time in the match, was especially im- pressive. Essex`s third successive championship victory now makes the title distinctly possible. In a calendar which notably fails to pit leading contenders against one another in late season, Essex meet Yorkshire at the end of August and have three final home matches on pitches which should play to their spinners. With Peter Such bowling two overs in this game, unbroken pace more than sufficed against Middlesex. Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by Ravi (sista@*.latech.edu)