It’s with great relief that I’m back from our championship visit to Durham. I don’t mean this as a slight on that fair county, but, as hospitable as the folk up there invariably are, for me the trip was a pain in the arse. Quite literally in fact, as due to the recent superbug scare, our Physio, Scott McAllister, insisted we each receive a TB booster shot before setting off. It didn’t sit well with me – and I use that phrase quite deliberately – as after the injection was administered to a rather delicate area close to my old Korean war-wound, I was unable to take occupancy of a chair in the standard manner for several days and spent much of that time hunched forward in a position Zoologists would have described as ‘presenting’.

All very annoying, especially as the players, who’d apparently “already had their inoculations before you arrived, Len”, didn’t seem to suffer any side effects themselves beyond some muscular convulsions similar in nature to a fit of giggles. Indeed a number of them were almost doubled up as I slowly hobbled towards the coach and Patto and OH-D had some difficulty catching their breath before lifting me into the overhead luggage rack that was to provide a ‘no pressure on the posterior’ holding area for me during our journeys up and down the A1. Not the most comfortable coach rides I’ve ever had, but as consolation everyone agreed the onboard TV reception was vastly improved by my holding the indoor ariel at a 45 degree angle between my knees.

Further problems occurred at the ground as I’m getting a bit long in the tooth to be standing up all day. Fortunately, after an excited team huddle, the lads came up with the idea of strapping me into one of those large porters trolleys, placing a discarded Simon Guy face guard on me to prevent sun burn and propping me up on the away team balcony pointed in the direction of the action. Apparently they got the idea from something called ‘Silence of the Lambs’, which I assume is one of those James Herriot books.

In hindsight I’d have been better off inside during a first day so overcast and cold some of the locals were wearing a T-shirt AND vest. But at least the risk of inflaming my chilblains meant I got to see AJ take his long awaited debut championship five-for just a couple of months after playing in his first Test match. An arse-about-face career path that highlights how important it is young Bluey starts scoring centuries soon, thus ensuring the England selectors loose all interest in him.

Incidentally, it’s worth noting that the five wickets Ajmal took where part of seventeen that fell on the first day. There actually wasn’t much wrong with t’pitch beyond an occasional bit of indifferent bounce but we still had a sweep in the Yorkshire dressing room as to what time Rob Key would call the ECB pitch inspectors to complain. As it turns out, one of them, Mike Denness, was already at the game, so my guess, “he’ll have phoned last night to make sure”, was deemed to have won. Chalk one up to my in-depth knowledge of the county scene, which in this case means knowing which pub the match officials were drinking in the night before.

The following morning we were faced with a perilous match position: seven wickets down, barely half way to Durham’s first innings score, and worst of all, Mags still at the wicket. That might sound harsh on a batsman who’d passed 1,000 runs for the season during the fag end of the previous days play, but given his record this season for restarting innings the following morning, it looked touch and go whether he’d have chance to run out any of the tail-enders before tamely nibbling one behind.

As it turns out, he did nothing of the sort, scoring an unbeaten century that was arguably the team’s best individual performance of the season and one that took us to an unlikely first innings lead. Cue a standing ovation on the Yorkshire balcony and some slightly distressed congratulations from yours truly whilst the porter’s trolley holding me tight was waved from side to side by Pyrah and Peanut with a degree more enthusiasm than skill.

We needed every run of that lead Mags had earned us, as bowling Durham out a second time was always going to be a harder proposition than on the first morning, given the weather had improved, the track eased up and Bressie had been wisked off down to London to meet up with the England squad. Quite what they achive by dragging players in and out of county games and making them travel the length of the county is hard to say. My best guess is they’re trying to get the backup bowlers so horribly out of form they stop uprooting Alistair Cook’s off stump during net practice.

Anyway, in Brezzie’s absence he was replaced by Oliver Hannon-Dalby, much to the annoyance of the locals who I don’t think had ever come across a double-barrelled name before and seemed unsure if we were trying to field twelve men at once. They were even less happy when he grabbed four wickets, the first time he’d taken more than one in an innings since May.

Incidentally, I’m still not convinced ‘Golden Bails’ can tell O H-D and Patto apart. I say that as I find it suspicious that he’ll only refer to them by name when they’re standing next to each other, whereas if one of them is on his own he just points and refers to “the big fella” in the same vague way Jack Charlton used to talk about members of the Irish football squad who didn’t share his interest in carp fishing. So whilst you can count me in as someone who’s been impressed with the way Galey keeps shuffling round his bowlers in the field, I am beginning to wonder if part of that is because he keeps putting the wrong lad on to bowl…

Whether he mixed the two up during Durham’s second innings probably didn’t matter as they finished with four wickets apiece, leaving us 299 to chase down our fifth win of the season.

In previous years a fourth innings target like that would have been viewed by Yorkshire with the same trepidation as Gareth Gates trying to learn the lyrics of Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah. But this is a new Yorkshire; one that stands nonchalantly in the slips, legs akimbo, fearing no man; one that writes rude messages on social networking sites and one that’s got Jacques Rudolph to score shed loads of runs for them in the second innings of games. It was another hundred of ‘em here plus seventy from Golden Bails himself that eventually saw us home with four wickets in hand.

That leaves us in third place with three more games to go. As Notts and Somerset are above us but both with a more difficult run in, it’s becoming so exciting I’m on the edge of my seat, which right now is the last place I want to be…

Result: Yorkshire won by 4 wickets

My Man of the Match: Mags

[Scorecard]

Si’thee later,

Len

(Match Photos by kind permission: Dave Morton)