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Friday 16 January 2009

Match Report

EMIRATES TROPHY 2008-09

Sharjah’s Cricket Stadium staged the Lord’s Taverners two latest encounters with a highly talented team of United Arab Emirates internationals thinly disguised at Emirates Airline baggage-handlers. Until the ICC’s corruption squad allegedly ended its international status in 2003, this now dilapidated venue had staged a record 198 internationals, plus four Test matches when West Indies and Australia refused to tour Pakistan in 2002. As the journey from Dubai takes 90 minutes and Sharjah does not embrace the delights of alcohol, the completion of the ICC’s new stadium in Dubai Sports City will not happen soon enough.

Although Roger Oakley’s hand-picked 14 players could claim an impressive tally of 332 Test and 483 Limited-Overs International caps their average age was 43 with the youngest 38. Moreover only three (Andy Caddick, Paul Nixon and Ian Salisbury) would be playing first-class cricket this summer and none had played for four months.

It was therefore no great surprise that the hosts comfortably won both matches to bring the victories count to Fly Emirates 10, Lord’s Taverners 4. However, few onlookers (and there were very few) suspected that this latest inept display was a deliberate ploy to assure us of another week’s escape from the frozen wastes of Britain next January.

Both games were played in coloured clothing and limited to 30 overs per innings with the Taverners winning both tosses. The first, curiously employing a red ball,  began at 10.42am after Mike Gatting had surprisingly elected to bat first on a pitch of rolled mud still damp from a tropical storm that had coincided with our arrival. When Chris Adams joined Graeme Hick, the score was a miserable 17-2 after eight overs. But for their 94-ball stand of 84 there would have been no contest at all. Initially both found scoring difficult against accurate bowling, lively fielding and a slow pitch of low bounce. Hick, now retired from county cricket with a combined first-class and List A runs aggregate of 63,171 runs (including 176 hundreds), played a memorable innings of 80 from 84 balls. It was a master-class in such testing conditions and the highlight of the short tour. Adams, who has also retired to become Surrey’s Cricket Manager, drew on the experience of 21 seasons of county cricket for his 38-ball contribution of 28.

The pitch eased after lunch and the result was never in doubt after Mohammad Iqbal and Amjad Javed had savaged the first three overs from Caddick and Devon Malcolm for 33. At 60-1 after seven overs it needed Darren Gough’s magic to cheer the visitors. With his first ball anywhere since August, ‘The Dazzler’ yorked the dangerous Arshad Ali. Although Gough repeated the feat in his third over and Salisbury conceded only eight runs from five overs, Amjad Javed’s 60 from just 54-balls led the hosts to a six-wicket victory with 6.3 overs in hand.

Messrs Bremner, Gatting and Gough were unavailable for the second match, started after lunch at 1.33pm and played with white balls on a more central pitch. Described by one player as ‘a cabbage patch’ it was reminiscent of those prepared at Trent Bridge with a grassy middle and bare ends by that ace pitch doctor, Ron Allsop, to assist the pace of Richard Hadlee and Clive Rice and off-spin of Eddie Hemmings.

Vince Wells decided to bowl first on this motley surface. Unfortunately the bounce became progressively uneven and the side batting second would have to complete the second half of its innings under lights. Niggardly bowling by Graham Rose, Salisbury, Wells and Neil Smith, supported by smart field settings, restricted the Emirates to a modest total of 127. It would have been more if a Caddick yorker had not crushed Iqbal’s toe when the twirling dervish was threatening carnage. His disappointment at having to retire hurt was more than compensated by being presented with a Bill Tidy cartoon masterpiece. Drawn, with Debbie Frindall’s lipstick to colour the blooded toe, it was entitled ‘Toe of the Match Award’ and occupied an entire table cloth.

At tea the Taverners knew they were in for a fight but were quietly confident of regaining the Silver Dhow Trophy. It was not to be and after the lights came on their last six wickets fell for 29 runs in 10.4 overs. Arshad Ali and Khurram Khan shared six wickets and were helped by three moments of black comedy involving two suicidal run outs and a toe-ended sweep back to a startled bowler.

Bill Frindall MBE

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