Bloody hell. That must have been depressing watching at Edgbaston today!
Warwickshire v Lancashire - Day 2 close of play report Bears plod to 130-4 in reply to Lancashire's 268 on second day at EdgbastonJun 09, 2014 18:52 By Brian Halford It is usually difficult to sum up a day’s cricket in one word.Days flow and fluctuate. Individuals do eye-catching things. The initiative shifts.The cricket passes through phases. You can’t possibly wrap it all on in one word. Usually.But today you could. One word says everything about the second day of Warwickshire’s match against Lancashire. That word? Slow.Slow. Slow. Slow. At certain points during the afternoon, in fact, as the Bears replied to Lancashire’s 268, ‘slow’ would be over-egging it in terms of pace and excitement.Warwickshire acquired 33 for two from the first 25 overs before accelerating (the term used in the loosest sense) to 130 for four from 71 overs at the close.It was plodding stuff with William Porterfield in the role of King Plod. Never before, surely, has the habitually forceful Irishman batted for three hours while hitting only one boundary, as he did in the first three hours of his innings yesterday.It is a slow pitch and the ball does not come on to the bat but perhaps the batsmen did pull in their horns a tad too far. Lancashire bowled well but not that well.Ironic cheers greeted the 100 when it came up from the last ball of the 61st over. Yet the Bears’ policy of atrition will be justified if they achieve a first-innings lead. A deficit could be damaging as they have to bat last on a pitch offering turn.After Lancashire resumed on 188 for six, they added another 98. Warwickshire have been troubled by wagging tails lately - in the last three games Middlesex and Yorkshire added 101 and 150 for the last two wickets and Somerset’s last pair put on 69.This time Tom Smith was the tail-stiffener, gritting his way to 50 in 217 minutes before playing on to Boyd Rankin.Smith was well-supported by Glen Chapple (33, 62 balls) and when Kabir Ali lifted Jeetan Patel to long on, the last four wickets had added 111.Warwickshire’s reply slipped straight into the slow lane and stayed there. After Varun Chopra paid for an early attempt to attack, edging Ali to second slip, attempts to attack were kept to an absolute minimum.Porterfield and Ateeq Javid added 20 in 16 overs before the latter (seven from 49 balls) fell to a Chapple yorker.Javid has batted well in T20 but his championship struggles go on - 88 runs in nine innings with six of the last seven failing to reach double-figures.Porterfield and Laurie Evans added 31 in 17 overs before the latter (20, 65) sliced Kyle Hogg to slip. Evans, in a similar championship trough to Javid, departed in anguish at having failed to exploit 65 minutes’ diligent groundwork.Still there was Porterfield. He added 51 in 25 overs with Sam Hain (25, 81) who fell lbw just before the close. That was quite handy as Smith’s stentorian appeal woke up a number of spectators just in time to go home.
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Topic: Bears/Pears Cricket Thread 2014 (Read 175981 times)
