[bugssy]

j green thoughts

well this is game 2 of my short career with essex and its against susse in a super cup match. good chance to score some quick runs and show i do have what it takes in the big league. coach bugs spoke to us at training yesterday morning before giving us the arvo off and said that we really needed to consolidate our early form and a win here would show a few ppl we mean business.

after training a few of the boys and i went back to skippers house (hussain) for a bbq and a quite swim. "wow look who i am hanginga round with" butcher and a stewart also turned up as they are good fiends of nassers and i got introduced. i had a really long chat with butcher and he gave me some useful tips.

cant wait till 2morrow, hopefully get amongst them, that is if i get picked.


the team remained unchanged and sussex won the toss on what looked like a nice deck. our groundsmen really knows how to prepare a wicket.

llot and irani opened p the bowling and irani got the breakthrough early in the 2nd over with a magnificent catch by middlebrook, sussex 1 - 3 and what a great start, just what we wanted.
m goodwin and c adams then started to put together a partnership and they played some magical shots. cowan come on in the 14th over and got goodwin trying to drive just outside off stump and 2nd slip took an easy catch. essex 2 - 73. the 15th over seen middlebrook come on and the field stretch out. middlebrook then got adams with an easy caught and bowled and sussex where 3 - 86. good start for us, as wickets are the key in one day games. middlebrook then got house next ball lbw for a duck and he was on a hatrick, and sussex where struggling at 4 - 86. the field come in for the hatrick ball, but it wasnt to be, yet a very good over, and we where full of confidence. middlebrook bowled his overs straight through and finished with great figures of 2 - 24 of 10 overs. sussex had got yet another little partnership going and where 4 - 132 after 35. we still needed to do a lot if we where to keep them at bay. sussex fought back well and recovered due to some handy batting by p cottey who finished with 95*(111) and r martin-jenkins 57*(83). they both batted well and there total of 50 overs was 4 - 233

pick of the bowling was middlebrook, we had a fight on our hands and just needed to keep wickets in hand for the onslaught if need be, coach bugs alone was still confident and he said it was probably a 260 - 270 wicket so.


the chase

grayson and stephenson opened up and grayson fell early for 4 we where 1 - 13. when habib fell for 60 (91) we where 2 - 128 of 33, and we really needed a quick cameo from someone.nasser was next to go for 32(33) and we where 3 - 185 of 43 still needing a further 49 runs at 7.0 runs per over but we had wickets in hand. irani was next in then me, and i was sweating and getting nervous. j stephenson fell for 78 (128) and i was in. this was it, could i do it. irani went for 1 and i only managed 12 we ended up falling 23 runs short, we finished up 6 - 210 of 50 overs, we shook hands and headed up to the dressing room.

it was a somber room with coach bugs just saying boys we let that one get away, we had it in our hands and let it slip.

my view

wow it was very somber in that room after our lose to sussex, how a room can change, just 28 hours we where ontop of the world with a convincing win in the fc but know back to reality, coach bugs went around ad spoke to the players and he said as a team he was going to introduce the paper theory, which is what the acb do, its a meeting a couple of days before game day with tactics and stats on the teams and players we will be playing and its a game plan we need to stick to. could be interesting, bugs is a perfectionist and although he was trying to be happy you could see that the loss really hurt him deep down. i dont want to let him down like that again.

our next game was in 6 days time against middlesex in another super group match. we had 6 days to get ack to the winning circle. coach called for training the next day, an early swim and weights session. better be off, got early start 2morrow.