Essex Recover To Take Spoils - Middlesex vs. Essex

The clouds gather other Lord's.

The home of cricket played host to Middlesex vs. Essex in the Twenty20 cup last Thursday night. The 2008 winners were really struggling in this years tournament and were yet to win a match. Essex were having an average start and lay in mid table. The match was made more interesting by Oawis Shah's return to Lord's following his release in the summer. With the test match between England and Sri Lanka producing a hat full of runs the omens were good for a high scoring game.

Scoreboard and light in the gloom.

Essex only managed to go through their innings at a fairly pedestrian rate. They get off to a bad start when they lose opener Stirling in the opening overs. Most of the batsman that follow manage to make solid starts but none of them manage to build on their starts and produce a big score. Captain Dexter high scores with 32 off 26 and the pick of the Essex bowlers is Southee who managed 21-3 from his four overs. The hosts manage to set Essex 151 to win the game.

Clearer skies over Lord's

Essex make an even worse start then the home side. They lose both openers to ducks and are 1-2 early on. The first wicket being a fantastic catch. This brings Shah to the crease who begins to construct the visitors comeback. He regularly loses partners before Foster comes in to help Shah take Essex over the finish line. Shah finishes with 78 from 50 hitting some huge sixes along the way to the delight of the large Essex following. The defeat leaves Middlesex still looking for their first win the tournament.

The Lord's media centre.

The closest underground station is St John's Wood on the Jubilee Line. The nearest overground is Marylebone which is around a twenty minute walk. I went to The Windsor Castle which was good. Although it is quite small and got very busy before the game. Despite the large crowd in the ground we never really had too queue long at the bars.

A section of the large crowd inside Lord's.

A match report can be found on the BBC Sport site.

Another shot of the Pavilion.