ASSOCIATES GO HEAD TO HEAD:
ALEXI KERVEZEE (Worcestershire) v ED JOYCE (Sussex)
New Road, Worcester Sunday 24 July
By Edward Liddle
At last a day of warm sunshine and, at last, with the T20 over as far as Worcestershire were concerned, something approaching proper cricket back at New Road in the shape of the 40 over League.
A chance too, I thought as I walked the half mile from the car park to the cricket, along the Severn, looking as though it would never dream of flooding anywhere let alone a cricket ground, to see two of the best Associate batsmen go head to head in Alexi Kervezee and Ed Joyce.
Kervezee has played some good innings this season, I have seen him play one excellent one when I had, for the sake of something to watch gone to a T20, but overall his fluency of last season has rather deserted him. Joyce has simply been Joyce!
Worcestershire won the toss and batted in front of one of their largest non T20 crowds of the season. Batting first did not seem a very good option. They are capable of chasing down a demanding total, but the attack is such that defending one is another matter. Soon too they lost the impressive left hander Moeen Ali who had destroyed the Sussex attack in the promotion winning Championship match at the end of last season.
Young left hander Jack Manuel batted fluently adding 97 for the second wicket with Vikram Solanki who, though he reached 50 never looked at ease. The fall of Manuel brought in Kervezee with the stage surely set for a fine innings and a team total of around 250. It was not to be. He never looked at ease. Sussex had their spinners on now, Monty Panesar, pushing the ball through rather than flighting it and off spinner Nash, extracting turn from the Diglis End.
Worcestershire and Kervezee became becalmed. Working the ball around for the odd single and two became the main method of scoring and prospective totals were revised downwards to around the 210 or 220 mark. Sussex captain and England ODI man, Mike Yardy introduced himself into the attack and suddenly, Kervezee unleashed a magnificent lofted on drive. Long on circled under it to shouts of "Catch it" from his team- mates. Had he been 20 feet tall he might have got his finger tips to it. As it was the ball crashed into the front boarding of the balcony which sits, uneasily I have always thought, on top of the covered stand. Unfortunately this was not a foretaste of things to come. Kervezee returned to his untypical style and shortly afterwards was bowled by Yardy for 24. He had faced 39 balls and hit one 6. Some late order hitting from pace bowler Gareth Andrew with his mongoose bat, saw the hosts to 217 which would never, the general round the ground opinion was, be enough.
And it never was. Jack Shantry opened the bowling for Worcestershire against Joyce and Nash. Shantry, whose brother is a Glamorgan player, has an odd approach to the wicket. He bowls left arm at just over medium pace but, or so it seems, off the wrong foot. In his delivery stride he resembles a mirror image of Mike Proctor the South African and Gloucestershire all rounder of years gone by, but there the similarity ends. Joyce treated the first four balls with the utmost respect, and then crashed the last two through mid off for 4 apiece.
He then embarked upon a remarkable, even for him, display of batting. Favouring the pull shot, even to balls around or outside off stump, he nevertheless was fluent all round the wicket. All the bowlers including Pakistani off spinner Saeed Ajmal, who had some remarkable T20 figures in recent weeks, looked like putty in his hands. One towering off drive brought him a six, barring that he pulled for4, or creamed the ball through the covers with nonchalant ease.
"It's like watching Man United against Worcester City," said someone near me. (City incidentally sit amidships in a far from leading non league table). The county's bowlers, when they managed to find line and length settled in though bowling around or just outside off stump The Corridor of Uncertainty? The only uncertainty in Ed's mind seemed to be whether to roll out an off drive or square cut or to pull the ball through mid wicket. He reached his 50 at well over a run a ball with six 4s and the one 6 already mentioned. Then he seemed to take a breather as Nash did more of the scoring. He, too, passed 50 and had begun to close in on Joyce when he was dismissed. This brought New Zealander and former Worcestershire overseas player Lou Vincent to the wicket. He hit two superb off drives to the boundary but was then bowled by Ajmals's doosra. 163/2. "Game on" declared the ultimate Worcestershire loyalist.
It was, of course, no such thing. Vincent's dismissal brought former Zimbabwean batsman Murray Goodwin to the wicket. He now took over the main scoring role, with Ed suddenly seeming to lose his fluency. Several pull shots, which would have found the boundary 20 minutes earlier were mistimed, bringing him only singles. Off side shots which had previously raced to the boundary now found fieldsmen for similar results. As the score passed 200 and Goodwin found the boundary with seemingly unstoppable regularity, opinion grew that Ed would not reach his well deserved ton.
Even the most ardent home supporters had long since stopped thinking he would get out and were, instead, willing him to three figures. Goodwin slowed down and did his best to give Ed the strike. As the 29th over began - such was the visitors dominance, they needed five to win and Goodwin had the strike with Ed the non striker apparently stuck on 97. A dot ball, then Goodwin visibly restraining himself pushed a single. I thought Ed had made up his mind where the next ball was going to go before it was delivered. All his earlier fluency returned as he unleashed another wonderful off drive. It bisected long off and deep extra and crashed in to boundary boars by the pavilion. 100 not out and as his team-mates gathered on their balcony to applaud him, the crowd rose to him very few setting of homewards until he had disappeared up the dressing room steps, with his opponents applauding. He had faced 89 balls, hitting ten 4s and one six.
Despite his somewhat quiet period towards the end, it had been a superb innings which will long live in the memory. Considering the result of the Leinster Cup Final the previous day, it had been quite a weekend for the Joyces!
Edward Liddle
