By Neville Scott at Southgate
First day of four: Middlesex 174-0 v Essex
THE Southgate ground, which has seen first-class cricket return after 139 years, was aptly named after the Walker brothers, mid-Victorian local benefactors all seven of whom represented Middlesex.
For the Sixties hit song, The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More, recorded by their namesakes, would certainly have struck a chord in what passed for June yesterday.
The squalls did at least allow 61 overs, more than anywhere else, and after winning the toss Middlesex made themselves entirely at home in unfamiliar surroundings.
On a placid pitch, Justin Langer produced a smart unbeaten 72 for Middlesex which leaves him just 69 short of 1,000 runs in his first County Championship season.
This is old hat to Mike Gatting, a makeshift opening partner now that Richard Kettleborough has been left out of the side. The former captain's first two runs carried him past J W Hearne to become Middlesex's second highest scorer, though another 12,598 to exceed Patsy Hendren will be beyond even Gatting.
His fifty, from 117 balls, was slightly less comfortable than Langer's but, denied any real bounce, pace or movement, the Essex bowlers never again suggested they might break through. Gatting's unbeaten 93 came from 199 studied deliveries.
It would be unkind to suggest that the visitors did well to lose the toss but, given the weather forecast, a final-day run chase on Monday already looks their only chance of victory.
This was the route to their one championship success to date in a season that seems certain to be given over to one-day ephemera.
None of this was really unexpected. For five seasons now, in a new era of four-day play, Essex have threatened to fall foul of that imbalance so long associated with Lancashire and periodically in the recent past with Surrey and Kent. The light comedy of one-day cricket has proved more enticing than the serious theatre of the real thing.
For a side who once set the standard for proper, sustained championship play, this is disappointing.
To be fair, Nasser Hussain's withdrawal with a trapped nerve in a hip - he has for some time suffered from sciatica - means that only in the season's opening game have Essex fielded a first-choice team and two or more players have usually been absent.
But with the normally reliable Mark Ilott continually over-pitching, the bowlers never really seemed to be at full throttle. Sporadic fielding lapses compounded an air of underachievement.
Only in the last 20 minutes did Peter Such come close to ending the Middlesex opening stand. But as Gatting overtook Langer after reaching his fifty, both seemed set to expand their repertoire today.
Day 2: Gatting opens with a flourish
By Rob Steen at Southgate
THAT endearing spare tyre has all but vanished. Those trademark cuts and pulls are eased rather than bludgeoned, opponents dissected with deliberation rather than dismembered with disdain. Suggestions that seasoned campaigner Mike Gatting is past his sell-by-date, however, seem somewhat premature. Afterall, how many 41 year olds have shared a county-record stand while learning a new trade?
It will be all too facile to look at the bland surface prepared for the picturesque Walker Ground's first significant fixture for 139 years and conclude that the 372 added by Middlesex's new opening firm of Gatting and Justin Langer lacked credibility. The fact remains, nonetheless, that the Essex attack numbers four England bowlers of various hues, let alone that matches between these sides are seldom short of combativeness.
That said, bar Paul Pritchard's failure to take a sharp catch offered by Langer amid the bitter chill of Friday morning, the nearest Messrs Ilott, Irani, Such and Cowan came to the oasis of a wicket in the first 109 overs of this contest was when Cowan parried Langer's vicious return drive. And to cite that as a chance would be a bit like describing Bugs Bunny as an actor.
Gatting's elbow does not have to travel too far to nudge the selectors these days. Yet so admirably has he adapted to his new role, it would not have been beyond the realms of plausibility for David Graveney and Graham Gooch to have asked him to leave the room during their meeting on Friday night, just as Cyril Washbrook was obliged to do in 1956 before he became the last England selector to be chosen for a Test.
In reaching the 93rd century of his career, the most prolific English batsman of the last 25 years - he averages more than Gooch maintained his predilection for Essex men by collecting his ninth hundred against Middlesex's only serious challenges as the preeminent county of the modern era.
Nor did he stop there. By the time the heavens emptied their substantial contents an hour before tea, he had swept on to 180, the piece de resistance a late cut off Paul Grayson essayed with the supreme delicacy of an Ilie Nastase drop shot.
Not that Langer was overshadowed. Until he was caught behind for 166, driving hesitantly at Irani, his footwork and stroke play had been as sweet as it was decisive, frequently recalling, in fact, the Gatting of yore. He can hardly be said to lack ambition.
His stated goal is to outstrip Jimmy Cook's record aggregate by an overseas batsman in an English season [2,755 in 1991]), a target rendered all the more improbable given that only five men have managed 2,000 runs since Durham entered the lists.
More realistically, Langer's current mean of 113.88 not only puts him in line to become the fifth man to average 100 in an English summer but has him already threatening Don Bradman's 1938 achievement of 115.66. That Australia still deem him surplus to their requirements is a sobering thought, indeed.
Day 3: Gatting eases to double century
By Neville Scott at Southgate
Third day of four: Essex (151-3 dec) trail Middx (488-2 dec) by 337 runs
THIS has been a season of debate about pitches again with the ECB increasingly concerned about surfaces favouring seamers. A bias towards the bat, however, is arguably more daunting still.
One feared the worst here almost before the first ball had been bowled. Given the weather since, everything - all too predictably has indeed come down to a run chase today.
Robbed of the element of surprise, it all became rather tedious. Mike Gatting continued to his 10th double century, reaching 241 in 426 balls before drilling to mid-off, and Middlesex, batting on for 15 balls after a rain-extended lunch, declared with 152 overs remaining.
To their credit, they have at least set up something like a proper final day. Essex's own declaration, and a forfeiture to come, leaves the visitors to chase an apparently very generous 338 in 96 overs.
The Walker Ground's only previous first-class fixture, in 1859, produced just 384 runs through four completed innings in 280 four-ball overs. A J Wisden of Almanack fame top-scored with 42. By that stage in this match, the princely sum of four, not 40, wickets had fallen.
After out-of-form Darren Robinson, edging his drive to slip, had inevitably attracted one of the few balls which bounced and Paul Prichard went to a superb Angus Fraser delivery which left him, Stuart Law joined Paul Grayson to ensure against collapse.
Grayson, clipping to short midwicket, went 15 minutes from the close for a season's best 54 but Law, with a restraint not always evident, went on to 48 from 113 balls.
Day 4: Irani takes Essex close
By Neville Scott at Southgate
Middlesex (488-2 dec & inns forfeited) drew with Essex (151-3 dec & 315-9)
RONNIE IRANI, playing the kind of astute, weighted innings which would once have been beyond him, almost piloted Essex through a successful last-day run-chase for the second time in nine days.
Arriving at 31 for three (against Somerset it was 36 for three), he reached 104 through 80 calculating overs. But at the crucial juncture, wisdom departed. At 314 for seven, with 24 wanted from 27 balls, Ashley Cowan swung needlessly to be caught on the midwicket boundary and, the batsmen crossing, Irani was then bowled attempting to reverse sweep the next ball. The last pair held out for a draw.
The impetus came from Stuart Law, hammering 62 in 82 balls, Danny Law's Essex championship best 62, including five sixes, and, in between, Steve Peters, a fine teenage prospect, with a cultured 59. All this despite early wickets to Angus Fraser, who generated more nip and movement in 50 minutes with the new ball than had been seen through three previous days.