Notts Outlaws are on their way to Lord’s for the Royal London One-Day Cup final. Here, BBC Radio Nottingham’s Dave Bracegirdle charts a personal journey…
Worcestershire Rapids (Worcester – lost)
The group stages started for the Outlaws at New Road against Worcestershire Rapids, and the first thing to notice was where the strip was cut. Any further over and they’d have been playing in the grounds of the Cathedral!
As such, a nice outdoor commentary area had been roped off for what turned out to be one of the coldest days of the year. Only once (more on that shortly) have I ever been colder at a cricket match and it was ridiculously dark by the end of the contest.
Michael Lumb blasted a hundred as Notts piled up the runs, reviving memories of last year when he began this competition with three successive tons.
Then the rain came down for the next few hours and the hosts were left with a (seemingly) generous revised target.
It was so dark towards the end that Billy Root, on debut for the Outlaws, was the only fielder I could make out and that was only because he was wearing fluorescent lime green footwear.
“One to take on the chin and move on,” Peter Moores said ruefully.
Yorkshire Vikings (Trent Bridge – lost)
After taking one on the chin at Worcester, Notts then took one in the solar plexus as they suffered a humbling at home to the Yorkshire All-Stars.
Fielding Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, David Willey, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Tim Bresnan and perhaps even Fred Trueman and Brian Close – the White Rose were heading back home with the points halfway through the day.
Played two, lost two.
“We never win on television,” the Members grumbled.
Derbyshire Falcons (Derby – won)
“It’s not quite win at all costs, but we don’t want to be leaving here with another loss,” Assistant Head Coach Paul Franks told me at the toss.
Quite what his thoughts where when Derbyshire rattled up 303 runs and dismissed Michael Lumb in the second over probably aren’t printable, but he needn’t have worried.
Half centuries from Alex Hales, Riki Wessels and Samit Patel had the Outlaws so far ahead that even another DLS intervention couldn’t disrupt a highly-impressive run chase.
Warwickshire (Edgbaston – won)
“What is the meaning of life?” is the greatest unanswered question of our time. Second is: “Why do Notts always hammer the Bears in white ball cricket, but never in red?”
Unlike many recent clashes against our West Midlands rivals this was a belter of a contest that went some way to banishing memories of my previous visit to the ground – for last season’s T20 Blast Finals Day (a day that will never be referred to again!).
The only tears that were shed this time were tears of joy for Billy Root, who scored one of the classiest hundreds I’ve seen for quite some time. Superbly-paced, he reached three figures in the final over of the innings with a colossal six as Notts sailed past 300.
Root had shared in a partnership of 159 with Steven Mullaney, who made 89 on his first competitive appearance of the season after injury, reminding all supporters of how much he’d been missed.
Warwickshire gave it a go and had been 185 for one at one stage. The cricket was as intense as it could be with Test speedsters Stuart Broad and James Pattinson bowling howitzers against the classy duo of Jonathan Trott and Ian Bell.
It all came down to a final over shoot-out with 16 needed, but Luke Fletcher repeatedly arrowed the ball into the block-hole to secure the win.
Leicestershire Foxes (Welbeck - won)
The annual trip to Welbeck has now become one of the most ‘looked-forward-to’ fixtures of the entire season. It has become synonymous with big-hitting, run-scoring, Outlaws-winning, sun-shining, rustic-pizza-eating happiness.
This year we saw a different side of Welbeck. It has its own micro-climate.
While the fortunate deckchair occupiers at the Spion Kop End were bathed in hot, bright sunshine all day – so much so that several gentlemen went fully topless (without shame!) – it was very different for the rest of us.
The commentary ‘marquee’ at the Sookholme End of the ground was in a direct line with the bitterest, most biting, mind-numbing wind that I can remember. It was colder than I’ve experienced at any sporting venue (and I’ve done Carlisle United in the depths of winter and snowy NFL games in New York).
By the end of the day, fellow commentators Richard Rae (of BBC Radio Leicester), Paul Johnson and myself were all bluer than a Chubby Brown DVD.
Fortunately, the players’ momentum wasn’t ruffled too much. James ‘The Foxhunter’ Pattinson took four of the 20 Leicestershire wickets he’s collected this season and Brendan Taylor’s unbeaten fifty meant early relief from the cold.
Durham (Trent Bridge - lost)
Thursday 11 May was clearly a slow news day as the fall-out from it made its way onto virtually every national radio station and television channel.
Alex Hales scored a quite brilliant hundred, which included a mighty blow for six from the bowling of Ryan Pringle.
I’ve seen many big blows at Nottingham and several have looked like they might make it up into the higher reaches of the Radcliffe Road Stand before gravity takes over and they fall someway short.
This particular ‘bullet’ had my name on it. Or to be strictly accurate, the name of co-commentator and good chum Martin Emmerson on it.
Sat describing the action next to my mate from BBC Radio Newcastle, I sensed that Hales had really middled the ball and the Exocet was screaming towards us at an alarming rate.
I have a healthy respect now for members of the public that take crowd catches but this one wasn’t for slowing down.
The ball sped through our open windows and narrowly missed Martin’s pride and joy – his tablet. It left a dent in the desk then ricocheted around our little room – wall, ceiling, floor – like a startled rabbit trying to escape, before I grabbed it.
“Wow, wow, wow,” was all I could manage.
“Hold it up Brace, I’ll take your photo,” came from the voice of Durham cricket.
Over the next couple of days I received hundreds – ney thousands - of messages from people that had either witnessed it or had heard it played out on various mainstream channels.
It made ‘Pick of the Week’ on Radio 4. Honestly, pick of the week? As I said, it must have been a slow news day.
Paul Collingwood’s unbeaten 73 from 47 balls was hardly mentioned afterwards, but was a truly great innings and it got Durham over the finishing line in the final over.
“We never win on television,” the Members grumbled.
Lancashire Lightning (Trent Bridge - won)
“I’ve been working really hard on my game and believe it’s all starting to come together for me.”
These were Samit Patel’s words after his scintillating century had rekindled the Outlaws hopes of qualifying for the knock-out stage.
Defeat would have been almost terminal to their chances, but Patel saw Notts over the line and perhaps, unknowingly, gave us all a hint that he was just about to embark on the best run of scores of his career.
Almost 9,000 people attended this match – taking advantage of a generous ticket offer and some glorious weather. They left knowing that qualification was back in the Outlaws’ hands, providing that they won their final match.
Northants Steelbacks (Wantage Road - no result)
I like omens and am deeply superstitious. Therefore, seeing two magpies (of course I said, “Good Morning Captain” to each of them) and then a squirrel (the Outlaws mascot is a squirrel) on getting out of the car at Northampton was a good thing as far as I was concerned.
We’ll never know how it would have panned out, but we only had about an hour of cricket before a deluge left us all hoping that Noah was on his way with an ark.
In the cricket that was possible, Ben Duckett looked on course to repeat his heroics from last season’s day that will never be referred to again – so perhaps the rain was timely.
That all left an anxious wait ahead. Durham would pip Notts if they beat Lancashire at home and so would Leicestershire if they defeated the Yorkies at Headingley.
“Get yourself home, Dave, I’m doing regular updates on BBC 5 Live,” said Kevin Howells, “I’ll be on at half-time in the footie.”
The first half of Arsenal v Sunderland passed me by as I negotiated myself away from Wantage Rad and headed back north, waiting for half-time.
“It looks like Notts will be the third qualifiers in the north group..”, began Kevin, before going into detail about how the Red Rose were going to win in Chester-le-Street and how the Foxes were losing wickets at an alarming rate.
Twenty minutes later I found a lay-by to pull into. Leicester’s last pair were at the crease with about 50 needed. We were almost there.
Ten minutes later (and almost home) I stopped again. What the? Clint McKay was teeing off and had got the Foxes within range. I switched to the commentary just in time to hear the last wicket go down and get confirmation that Notts were through to the knock-out phase.
Somerset (Taunton - win)
I’ve eaten beetroot more times than sides have scored 400 in this country in one-day cricket (and I refuse to eat beetroot at any price!).
Yet, since the start of last season it is almost becoming the norm for Notts to target 400 in 50 overs.
For the third time in 12 months, they passed that landmark and they needed it because Somerset came back fighting.
Riki Wessels made a superb 81 for the Outlaws but the innings belonged to Brendan Taylor, who played an innings I’m not even sure he knew he was capable of playing.
His 154 was one of the best white ball innings I have ever witnessed and I hope I made up for the “wow” nonsense with this line when he was out… “What an ovation, he’s being cheered all the way off but if they really cared they would rush on with a chariot and carry him off…” It was that good (his innings, I mean!).
Notts made 429-9, Somerset replied with 405 all out. Nothing else needs to be said.
“But it wasn’t on television and the semi-final will be……”, one Notts member said, bringing me down to earth.
Essex (Chelmsford - won)
Let’s put that TV nonsense to bed now, shall we? Notts have won some big, big matches on television over the years and this was up there with the best they’ve ever done on our screens.
Hundreds from Samit Patel and Steven Mullaney, coupled with 61 from Brendan Taylor, helped the Outlaws create another piece of history by pulling off the highest one-day run chase in this country.
Tons from Cook and ten Doeschate led Essex to 370-5 and turned Chelmsford into party-town as the locals began to dream about Lord’s.
Three hours or so later and you could hear a pin drop as the realisation began to kick in that they were witnessing a first, and it was becoming a painful watch for them.
The noisiest part of the ground was the Notts balcony as all the players and support staff – who all believed that they would win – celebrated as Patel hit back-to-back fours to confirm a place at Lord’s.
Surrey (Lord’s - ?)
It’s strange how the third-placed team in the north group will face the third-placed team in the south group, isn’t it? Anyway, it promises to be a thrilling final and I’m looking forward to it immensely.
I’ll be trying to recreate most things I did before the 2013 final, because that’s important, right?
Although, on the eve of that match I did manage to leave my laptop in a London pub for 20 minutes and was as surprised as anyone when I went back and it was still there (certain members of the Notts squad know that this is a regular occurrence with me).
There’s one other thing I did that weekend that I, hopefully, won’t be repeating. You know when the announcers at railway stations say, “Mind The Gap”?….please listen to them!
Enjoy the final – and Up The Outlaws!
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