The first day of play at Hove in 2010: Sussex win the toss and choose to bat. The moment before the first ball of the day is released is held in the eyes of the crowd, and the significance of that first indentation into a season lingered upon. First ball, Joyce is out. We groan. Nash hits a couple of driving 4s and is then promptly caught ... off a no ball. We breathe deeply. When lunch arrives, Sussex are 48 for 1. A few hours later we are 181 for 5. And then before we know it, we are 280 all out. Only Nash has played an innings of any significance with the other players behaving more like skittles than batsmen. No matter, we say defiantly - it's probably the wicket; we'll do the same to them...
But I will never know whether we did bowl them out for less than 200 and go on to win the match, because at that moment I woke up. Yes, there may be 3 months to go until the season starts in the real world, but my sleep season started at the weekend. Just as real as the real thing, with its moments of disasterous batting and resolute optimism, and probably a lot warmer than the real thing (it was all blue skies and sun), my sleep season kicked off. Unpredictable (you never quite know when it's going to happen) but very cheap, this is the best winter membership you can get. The only annoying thing is that you never really get to find out any endings - I suppose it is a bit hard to stuff 4 day's play into one night's sleep - but you do get to watch lots of openings. So, as and when more dream play gets under way, I'll post the scores here ...
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Top 10 Sussex moments of the decade...
Creating your own chart of best moments from a decade is hardly original, but it is strangely addictive - the sort of thing that snaps you out of sleep in the middle of the night, as you realise you have missed a key moment which deserves to fly straight in at number 3. Why did I find this so compulsive? Is it that in sorting and sifting through the past we can reconstruct and re-experience those highs which scarcely seem believable in retrospect? After all, many 'highs' from the last 10 years for Sussex supporters also involved an excruciating level of tension and agony, if not actual pain. The 'yes!' moments blurred with both the relief that the tension was over and that you could breathe again, and the shock that it had actually happened. In real life. To Sussex. Shock numbs the mind, protects you against the fear that this was the best ever dream but that in reality Lancashire did actually win. Maybe we can only experience the real feeling of the moment once it has gone - once it has slipped safely into the past, never to be changed. Then - remembering and knowing it can never be lost - the real beauty of the thing can be held to the light and appreciated. Or - maybe - I spent far too long listening to the charts when I was a teenager, wondering whether my favourite song has gone up one place or slipped down two, and this is my revenge on the cruelties and inconsistencies of Gallup? Or - maybe, I am just a total geek...
Number 10:
2009: Dwayne takes 4 wickets in an over against Notts. He then runs around the pitch for about 10 minutes celebrating. The Sky Commentary team are almost lost for words. I am not.
Number 9:
2006: Rana takes 4 wickets in an over at Lords while I am on a train in Corsica. The four hour journey across Corsica on a little juddery train took us through an incredible mountainous landscape; encased by the beautiful scenery and witnessing the drama of forest fires being soused by helicopters above us, for five minutes my phone buzzed almost constantly with the news of wickets falling at Lords. To be precise - 4 wickets in 6 balls. The gorgeous Rana. Much missed.
Number 8:
2001: Jason takes a hat-trick against Hampshire at Hove in his first over of the day. This was the first time I had ever seen a hat-trick live. After all those years of getting hammered by other teams, the tide turned. Here we were, doing it to other teams; here was Jason at his best.
Number 7:
Autumn 2006: Chris Adams comes back. Memories of the past will not be tainted by the present. It had been a dull, everyday sort of day, cold, wintery, tired. Got home from work and received a text from dad: CHECK CEEFAX PG 344 NOW! NOT A JOKE! And there it was - the news that Chris Adams had changed his mind about Yorkshire & was coming home to Sussex. Totally unexpected, totally unthinkable (we'd all seen him holding the new shirt on Sky Sports News), totally brilliant.
Number 6:
2006 Championship- getting the phone call from Notts at lunchtime whilst I was at work. Doing a little jig in the corridor. Going back into the office afterwards and pretending to be normal.
Number 5:
2008 Pro-40 'final'- I had totally given up. Had started to do some work on the sofa in front of the match. Not allowing myself to believe it could happen, instead I congratulated us on not giving up & on making Notts work for it. That final over was incredible. The faces on those Notts fans in the crowd when Sami swung that ball down behind the wicket for 4. They couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. Murray Goodwin believed it. Final ball. "It's a big six, it's a huge six, it's an all the way six, yeeeeessssss! It's Sussex by the sea!"
Number 4:
2009 20-20 Final: this was the least tense I have ever been before a final or a 'big' match. A week in Sorrento leading up to the Saturday did wonders for pre-match nerves. On the day, I felt excited, not scared. Sussex were perfect. No angst, no heads in hands, no sense we had thrown it away. We were unbeatable and the commentators waxed lyrical about us. " There is an attitude and then there is the Sussex attitude." It was like watching a film about some brilliant team and then realising with awe that this was SUSSEX!
Number 3:
2006 C&G Trophy - The best thing about this one was that by the time Sussex started bowling I had not only resigned myself to losing, I had rationalised and accepted it. My main target? For us to lose in a not too embarrassing way. Let's just say we totally exceeded that target. James Kirtley: hero.
Number 2:
2007 Championship. The pain! The agony! All of those hours and hours after our match had finished, waiting for news of how Lancashire were getting on at the Oval. Simultaneously dreading and willing text alerts to arrive with score/wicket updates.Wicket! Runs. Wicket! Runs. On and on it went like the fairground ride of your nightmares. Standing by our bench in front of the players' pavillion, looking up onto their balcony for signs and rumours and cheers and groans. The scoreboard tracking the Lancashire score. More hours passed. Finally - CORK HAS GONE! Hove erupts in relief and joy.
Number 1:
2003 Championship - obviously. I was having a go at being self-employed at the time. Didn't get a lot of work done. Spent the day before that crucial bonus point was clinched attempting to work at home in London, trying to ration myself to checking the score on Ceefax every 15 minutes only. Failing. Deciding in the evening to go and buy some champagne to take down to Hove the next day. Wracked with guilt and agony once I'd bought it in case I was tempting fate. The journey down to Brighton the next morning, sitting on the train feeling all jingily jangily, wondering how everyone else could be sitting there so normally, as if it was a normal day. Sitting at Hove in the pavilion and waiting ... a beautiful blue sky day...
'Yes!'
Championship win stopped play, Champagne, photos, phone calls. An awful lot of newspapers bought the next day. And Sussex were in every one of them. History had been made.
Number 10:
2009: Dwayne takes 4 wickets in an over against Notts. He then runs around the pitch for about 10 minutes celebrating. The Sky Commentary team are almost lost for words. I am not.
Number 9:
2006: Rana takes 4 wickets in an over at Lords while I am on a train in Corsica. The four hour journey across Corsica on a little juddery train took us through an incredible mountainous landscape; encased by the beautiful scenery and witnessing the drama of forest fires being soused by helicopters above us, for five minutes my phone buzzed almost constantly with the news of wickets falling at Lords. To be precise - 4 wickets in 6 balls. The gorgeous Rana. Much missed.
Number 8:
2001: Jason takes a hat-trick against Hampshire at Hove in his first over of the day. This was the first time I had ever seen a hat-trick live. After all those years of getting hammered by other teams, the tide turned. Here we were, doing it to other teams; here was Jason at his best.
Number 7:
Autumn 2006: Chris Adams comes back. Memories of the past will not be tainted by the present. It had been a dull, everyday sort of day, cold, wintery, tired. Got home from work and received a text from dad: CHECK CEEFAX PG 344 NOW! NOT A JOKE! And there it was - the news that Chris Adams had changed his mind about Yorkshire & was coming home to Sussex. Totally unexpected, totally unthinkable (we'd all seen him holding the new shirt on Sky Sports News), totally brilliant.
Number 6:
2006 Championship- getting the phone call from Notts at lunchtime whilst I was at work. Doing a little jig in the corridor. Going back into the office afterwards and pretending to be normal.
Number 5:
2008 Pro-40 'final'- I had totally given up. Had started to do some work on the sofa in front of the match. Not allowing myself to believe it could happen, instead I congratulated us on not giving up & on making Notts work for it. That final over was incredible. The faces on those Notts fans in the crowd when Sami swung that ball down behind the wicket for 4. They couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. Murray Goodwin believed it. Final ball. "It's a big six, it's a huge six, it's an all the way six, yeeeeessssss! It's Sussex by the sea!"
Number 4:
2009 20-20 Final: this was the least tense I have ever been before a final or a 'big' match. A week in Sorrento leading up to the Saturday did wonders for pre-match nerves. On the day, I felt excited, not scared. Sussex were perfect. No angst, no heads in hands, no sense we had thrown it away. We were unbeatable and the commentators waxed lyrical about us. " There is an attitude and then there is the Sussex attitude." It was like watching a film about some brilliant team and then realising with awe that this was SUSSEX!
Number 3:
2006 C&G Trophy - The best thing about this one was that by the time Sussex started bowling I had not only resigned myself to losing, I had rationalised and accepted it. My main target? For us to lose in a not too embarrassing way. Let's just say we totally exceeded that target. James Kirtley: hero.
Number 2:
2007 Championship. The pain! The agony! All of those hours and hours after our match had finished, waiting for news of how Lancashire were getting on at the Oval. Simultaneously dreading and willing text alerts to arrive with score/wicket updates.Wicket! Runs. Wicket! Runs. On and on it went like the fairground ride of your nightmares. Standing by our bench in front of the players' pavillion, looking up onto their balcony for signs and rumours and cheers and groans. The scoreboard tracking the Lancashire score. More hours passed. Finally - CORK HAS GONE! Hove erupts in relief and joy.
Number 1:
2003 Championship - obviously. I was having a go at being self-employed at the time. Didn't get a lot of work done. Spent the day before that crucial bonus point was clinched attempting to work at home in London, trying to ration myself to checking the score on Ceefax every 15 minutes only. Failing. Deciding in the evening to go and buy some champagne to take down to Hove the next day. Wracked with guilt and agony once I'd bought it in case I was tempting fate. The journey down to Brighton the next morning, sitting on the train feeling all jingily jangily, wondering how everyone else could be sitting there so normally, as if it was a normal day. Sitting at Hove in the pavilion and waiting ... a beautiful blue sky day...
'Yes!'
Championship win stopped play, Champagne, photos, phone calls. An awful lot of newspapers bought the next day. And Sussex were in every one of them. History had been made.
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