Date-stamped : 17 Aug96 - 10:29 County Championship 1996 Middlesex v Worcestershire Lord's, London 15, 16, 17, 19 August 1996 ====>REPORT (Day 1, 15 August 1996) Moody assumes supreme control By Neville Scott at Lord`s TOM MOODY, belying his name, was in very good humour yesterday. The ease with which five Australian batsmen unable to retain a Test place have strolled through our county season should chill England supporters to the bone. Even in the hour after lunch when Moody became watchful, as Middlesex at last sustained the pressure that might have justi- fied a decision to field, his presence was commanding. The passage ended with Reuben Spiring taking on Phil Tufnell but failing to clear mid-on, making Worcestershire 150 for four. The innings was never again in the balance. Moody, who had ar- rived to avoid a Ricky Fay hat-trick in the eighth over, now added 131 at 4.5 per over with Vikram Solanki, passed a fourth hundred in his last seven completed cham- pionship innings and departed 70 minutes before the close with a third batting point secure. Mike Gatting, surprisingly back in action after only 15 days following knee surgery, inserted the opposition in murky condi- tions resemblimg a Fenland autumn. As Fay seamed off a length to remove Tim Curtis and Graeme Hick (first ball) in an over in which Phil Weston was also dropped at long leg, the idea was sound. But in runs per wickets lost this year, Worcester have the championship`s third strongest batting order. Wes- ton expanded until cutting at what became the last ball before lunch and fellow youngsters, Spiring and Solanki, prospered in subsequent sunshine. Solanki, 20, still at the stage where high talent awaits wisdom, hooked ambitiously after tea to cut short a splendid 69 off 99 balls and Steve Rhodes fell minutes from the end. But Moody, in serene fashion, had ensured the ad- vantage. ====>REPORT (Day 2, 16 August 1996) Middlesex crack in evening flurry By Neville Scott at Lord`s The match between the Middlesex side with good bowling this sea- son but distinctly frail batting and visitors with precisely the opposite balance (only one attack has found wickets more costly than Worcester`s) always threatened stalemate. As 84 overs offered 174 runs, 41 to Worcester`s last three wickets in the first 100 minutes yesterday, Middlesex - mindful of recent failure and a weak tail - dropped all availabled anchors. For such methods, success is all: anything less can seem de- cidedly foolish. Then, in 23 deliveries, Mark Ramprakash (64 from 186 balls) suddenly sent a leading edge to mid-off, Mike Gatting (56 balls over his first 10 runs) was bowled by Stuart Lampitt`s off-cutter and Keith Brown went first ball to the same bowler. Embarrassment, and the follow-on, loomed. On a pitch now as benign as most Worcester have confronted this summer, though the odd ball keeps low, such penetration had seemed inconceivable, despite Paul Weekes`s fall to the reply first ball, lifting and superbly held at slip. In time, with improved control and faster pitches, wicket-taker Alamgir Sheriyar, the fourth quick bowler Worcester have tried in pursuit of the spearhead they crave, should prove a match-winner. Comfortably the fastest of England`s present lush crop of left-arm seam, inaccuracy let him down. The most memorable of Jason Pooley`s first 30 runs in two hours were overthrows. His grim battle for some semblance of touch was as painful to behold as undoubtedly it was for poor Pooley to endure. No sooner had timing returned than he holed out to allow Gatting an equally tortured 30 overs. With Jamie Hewitt undone three minutes from the end, the follow-on is still 53 runs away. ====>REPORT (Day 3, 17 August 1996) Tufnell revives tail of defiance Neville Scott at Lord`s IN years when John Emburey was there to marshalastute resistance, runs from the tail were often critical to Middlesex`s ability to keep in touch in the tightest games. Such canny command of an invaluable, under-appreciated art has rarely been seen this sum- mer in a side whose count of runs per wicket lost is the third poorest in the championship. It returned with a vengeance yesterday. Middlesex, 167 for six overnight and 185 for seven in the day`s eighth over, not only found the further 35 runs they needed to avoid the follow- on, but reached a second batting point with eight down and an im- probable third with five balls to spare, and Phil Tufnell - repeat Tufnell - offered a highly individual, but entirely passable, imitation of a maestro. The days when Tufnell used to clench buttocks and retreat to square leg against anyone above Graham Thorpe`s pace are gone. He has realised that, with his sound crick- eting brain, for all its quirks, and serious practice, strokes need not be beyond him on slow county pitches. The result was there for all at the final county Saturday of the season at Lord`s to relish - and cheer to the rafters. Tuf- nell, distrusted by hierarchies, is positively embraced by the masses. His 11th season has brought up 1,000 career runs and taken his batting average into double figures for the first time. Cover-driving one of an astounding 15 boundaries in 67 not out through eight men on the off side, he reached the hitherto un- charted forties at the 195th attempt and advanced to a maiden fifty in just 69 balls. The crowd`s joy exceeded even Tufnell`s. The in- nings, surely the summer`s unlikeliest, had not only transformed the match but made a mockery of Middlesex`s approach on Fri- day when, in rare tactical disarray for so aware a side, they scored 167 runs from fully 82 overs. Seventy minutes before tea, Mike Gatting could time his de- claration to leave Tufnell, No 11, as top scorer after just the second Middlesex 100-run tenth-wicket stand since the War. John Carr, dropped after 90 minutes when 32, finished a run behind (from 230 balls), utterly upstaged. At the very least a reasonable run chase has been as- sured tomorrow in a match Middlesex were still losing at lunch. For Worcestershire, 45 runs on with nine wickets standing after a pre-destined Tufnell wicket with the last ball before tea, it was all too familiar. Two-thirds of their matches have involved third-innings declarations which says much about the pitches they have faced but more about their imbalance. Excellent batting (none in their top nine here averages under 33 this season ) combines with meagre penetration in attack. An error, perhaps, was to take the new ball after Richard Il- lingworth, introduced 90 minutes after lunch on Friday and re- lieved 80 minutes into play yesterday, had re- turned 37-11- 73-5. Worcestershire captain Tom Moody is not the first to discover that Tufnell quakes in his boots no longer. ====>REPORT (Day 4, 19 August 1996) Solanki has Middlesex reeling By Neville Scott at Lord`s A FINAL day of the Lord`s county season in which spinners bowled 79 overs, taking all 13 wickets, ended, ultimately, in Middlesex`s last pair, nine short of their tar- get, playing out the final two balls. It was presumably not Mike Gatting`s fiend- ish plan for Middlesex to bat second in the hope of a chase, but a fair target of 251 in 49 overs, on a pitch granting real turn only sporadically, could be happily entertained. It looked on after 30 overs when, at 134 for one, they needed 6.16 per over. But in two balls, the highly promising Vikram Solanki, Indian-born but Wolverhampton- raised and good enough to play second XI cricket at 15.5, had Mark Ramprakash playing on and Gatting compromised by one of the few to turn viciously as he made room to carve. Solanki had replaced Graeme Hick, who gained a second wicket in two months by removing Paul Weekes` leg stump. The young spinner then had Jason Pooley leg before after a superb 105- ball 87, his season`s best after fighting poor form manfully all summer. When picking up and throwing off his own bowling, la Roger Harper, to run out John Carr and having Keith Brown superbly taken at midwicket, Solanki, en route to a career-best five for 69, had apparently won the game. Learning processes are grim: his next three overs went for 34 but Richard Johnson`s 14-ball 28 was halted at the other end and, in the last over, Solanki claimed Angus Fraser before Ricky Fay was run out in a final dash. Earlier, Tim Curtis offered a century which moved perfectly from opportune resistance to selective attack as the declaration ap- proached. He batted for 322 minutes and hit a six and 12 fours in his 118. Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by Ravi (sista@*.latech.edu)