Surrey sent home empty handed

Sussex v Surrey

Friday evening T20 cricket. Almost didn't go, very glad we did. Twenty twenty cricket has evolved. Initially it was just a slightly accelerated, short-form one-day game. Then teams were scoring off every ball, as a minimum, with any number of huge sixes thrown in for a laugh. You needed around the two hundred mark to be in with a chance. Bat technology move on. A modern bat makes what I started playing cricket with look like a lolly-stick. Find the sweet spot, no effort required, and you're in business from a block.

Now the bowlers have become more inventive, the fields better placed, and fewer runs are par scores.

The fact is that when anyone can smack the ball into the middle of next week, smacking the ball into next Wednesday isn't that wonderful or unusual. When everyone bumbling in at seven, eight and nine is smashing ten an over, being Chris Gayle isn't so special any more. Apart from the fact that being Chris Gayle would be special in any case. It would involve smashing the ball further and more frequently than anyone else. Irk the Purists (HMHB) applies. Further and more frequently is a good thing.

They batted first and scored 171. We needed 172 to win. That's a bit over-par for the County Ground, recently.

Luke Wright got a fifty then got out, it all started looking very wobbly, properly unpromising, but somehow...and here's where sport always wins – it's never a matter of 'how?', just a matter of 'how many?' Sussex clung, chanced, scrambled, and rockily-wobbled their way over the line. Needing four runs to win, off the last ball, they edged a four off the last ball.

Standing ovation.

That's sport, it can deliver disappointment, and joy, like little else, because when the result is in doubt until the very, very, last; because when things go down to the wire, there's involvement and excitement. There's tension and release. There's nights to remember.

There's comments to remember too.

I said to AD:

“I'm going to go veggie. Again. Fish, but no meat”

To which he said:

“I don't think I could do that, too much of a meat-head. I could give up that other stuff. [Pause] What'd'ya call it? [Longer pause] vegetables, salad. That stuff I could live without.”

I don't think AD's going to be knocking at the door of the vegan society anytime soon. Or anytime at all, actually. His local butcher needn't worry about trade falling off from the D household, by the sound of it. The greengrocer? Maybe he should worry.

We were in the public seating section, too. Loads of beered-up after work blokes, loads of singing, stag and hen parties, no fancy food, no suits. I felt comfortable. More than I ever did in the posh bit last season. Seems that's where I belong.

After a hugely disappointing season last year, when they looked disjointed, like a gaggle of talented but disorganised and less than the sum of the parts individuals, Sussex look like a proper team again.