June 2009 Archives

Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

While so much attention centres on the Twenty20 World Cup, here at Edgbaston begins what looks a cracking four-day game. Warwickshire, maximum batting points every time so far this season, against Durham, bang in form and, led by Onions and Harmison, on fire with the ball.

That confrontation comes later though. Durham have won the toss and will bat.

Rankin is back for Warwickshire after T20 duty with Ireland.

Warwickshire team: Westwood, Frost, Trott, Bell, Troughton, Ambrose, Botha, Carter, Patel, Woakes, Rankin.

Match drawn after rain and bad light stopped play with Nottinghamshire 376 for 6 (77.2 overs). Read 15, Ealham 14. 11 points each.

Brown was run out for 64 by a direct hit by Ambrose. Wagh (147, 161 balls, 19 fours, three sixes) bottom-edged a pull at Carter and was caught behind.

There are 14 lovely little conifers growing behind the pavilion, about two feet tall, all green and lovely and getting established by the front wall.

They'll have a battle on their hands when the piledrivers and bulldozers arrive in January.

Actually, although the pavilion is obviously ramshackle and partly a ruin, there are plenty of bits and pieces around that end of the ground that are nice and precious and historically important. Hope everything is handled with care.

Bears team for the three-day friendly against Durham UCCE at Durham starting on Thursday: Frost, Poonia, Piolet, Javid, Johnson, Barker, MacLeod, Choudhry, Tahir, Miller, Anyon. 12th man: Webb.

Tea: Nottinghamshire 216 for 4 (57 overs). Wagh 83.

Wagh slowed right up in the 50s and 60s. He added 148 in 35 overs with Voges who was out to the last ball before tea, edging Patel to Ambrose for 76.

The afternoon has gone grey and chilly. Even some of the diehards have called it a day already.

Barker got one or two past the outside-edge. Trott had a bowl and was lifted into the Hollies Stand by Wagh. There's an enormous, tasty-looking blueberry muffin to my right and a BBC commentary team, doggedly trying to prise entertainment from this dying contest, to my left.

"There's a few dark clouds away to my left," Clive Eakin has just observed, hopefully.

Nottinghamshire 127 for 3 (32 overs). Wagh 55, Voges 19.

50 partnership in 11 overs. Carter and Anyon bowling. No pied wagtail.

Wagh (50, 56 balls, 9 fours) is evoking memories of all the lovely innings he played for the Bears. Far from faultless today with one or two streaky shots including one, on 35, through vacant third slip off Carter (during almost the only over in the innings so far when there has been less than three slips) but also some trademark drives, perfectly timed.

So, for Warwickshire in the championship this season: four matches, four hauls of maximum batting points, four draws.

Whither, if I may use that rather pompous and outdated word, their season now?

Nottinghamshire 68 for 3 (22 overs). Wagh 22, Voges 0.

Patel, on 4, tries to pull Woakes's sixth ball after lunch and bottom-edges to Ambrose who takes a good low catch.

As this could be a long afternoon, here's Thomas Gray's brilliant "Elegy in a Country Churchyard".

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness, and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Let the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
'Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;

'There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high.
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

'Hand by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with car, or cross'd in hopeless love.

'One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

'The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,-
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.'

THE EPITAPH

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown;
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere;
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heaven, 'twas all he wish'd, a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose,)
The bosom of his Father and his God.

LUNCH: Nottinghamshire 64 for 2 (20.3 overs). Wagh 22.

Jefferson, for reasons known only to himself, tried to lift the third ball of the last over before lunch, from Patel, over the Hollies Stand and instead skied it to mid-wicket where Frost took the catch.

Wagh looks in the mood to score a century on his old patch.

Nottinghamshire 36 for 1 (14 overs). Jefferson 15, Wagh 0.

Woakes and Carter bowled accurately and aggressively with the new ball but it was Anyon who made the breakthrough, coming on at the City End and producing a fine, rearing, straight delivery which Shafayat gloved to Ambrose to depart for 20.

Barker's second ball in championship cricket brought a loud lbw appeal against Jefferson.

Woakes 7-0-12-0.

Warwickshire 402 for 9 declared. Patel 3, Anyon 14.

Warwickshire take maximum batting points after a glorious cameo from Anyon. Troughton had his middle-stump removed by Shrek and departed for 73. Woakes's furniture was then rearranged by Fletcher off a no-ball but he slapped the next delivery straight to extra-cover to perish for 33.

That left Patel and Anyon, neither of whom had faced a ball, with 16 to find to post the 400. Anyon immediately struck Shrek, Sunil Gavaskar-like for four, took a couple of singles, Geoff Boycott-like off the last balls of overs and then drove handsomely, David Gower-like to the cover boundary to trigger the declaration.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. The weather is fine with just a few clouds around as Troughton and Woakes, having added 50 so far, prepare to resume their challenge for Warwickshire's eighth-wicket record against Nottinghamshire - the 119 lodged by Norman Kilner and Freddie Santall at Edgbaston in 1930.