Lancashire Lightning versus Yorkshire Vikings, Now TV, 20th July; MCC versus Nepal versus Netherlands, 29th July, Lords; Surrey Stars versus Lancashire Thunder, 31st July, the Oval.
The Roses rivalry produced a game of short form cricket that was about as good as it gets and, rather unusually for T20 cricket on TV, the memory of this match, which won Lancashire by 1-run, might actually last for a while. It also helped set up the Championship fixture that followed afterwards, a message for the fixture schedulers maybe, but overall Counties 2 ECB 0 in the week after the football World Cup.
The MCC’s triangular tournament deserved better luck with the weather, but the two ICC associate nations did get some time out on the hallowed turf, and for the Marylebone Club players, there was two 36-ball contests as well. An afternoon helped rather a lot by the noisy, infectious, enthusiasm of the Nepalese support, several hundred in the Grandstand, the nature of which was rather similar to that given at some of the events during London 2012. The Dutch in the crowd did European style support and there was also a sprinkling of MCC members in attendance. The non-aligned were not very many; this blogger was one, curious enough to go, but there mainly from having been a heat wave absentee from a Blast fixture earlier in the week.
Two days later July was dressed up again and playing her tune at the Oval, where the KSL fixture was played in front of a weekday sized county audience, and despite the ground gearing up for the men’s match in the evening, it had much of the ambience of a county game.
The match was dominated by the performances of Natalie Sciver who made an undefeated 95, and Nicole Bolton who replied for the visitors with 87, out leg before to the Surrey star and Star. In the end the visitors won with one ball to spare following a 4, then 6, after threatening to implode; a good T20 finish. The match evidently held the attention of those watching and for an afternoon’s entertainment at the people’s Home of Cricket £5 still and a bargain.
From which a couple of observations: as a spectacle the shortest form of the game is very reducible to its fundamentals of boundary hits, moments of brilliant fielding and extras referred to under a variety of names, taking singles and coming back for a second included. To which fine taken for what it is, the Roses contest was in practice 84 balls this year and it would have been hard to have been a much better watch if it had been 120. Or a 100. If the short form of the game is going to expand globally via the Olympics, it would not be at all surprising to see it played as T10.
Whether the cricket is played in Manchester or Kathmandu, history and context is a gift to the present from the past; a fundamental that the ECB certainly appears to be trying to ignore with its proposed competition from 2020. The MCC triangular tournament had obvious purpose, but sitting in the Lord’s Grandstand and looking the other way did prompt the thought who is going to identify with the 8-gon tournament coming in from the Nursery End?