Advice from Warne and getting turned away from Lord’s

July 6 

Middlesex Panthers v Rajasthan Royals, Lord’s

The first time an IPL side has played a one-off charity game in England and the Rajasthan Royals beat us comfortably. The pitch was quite worn and trying to get Shane Warne away was very difficult so that bogged us down to start with. I hadn’t played Warne before. I’ve watched a hell of a lot of him growing up. ‘Just watch the ball,’ that’s all I was thinking. Play it as you see it. Don’t get distracted by him. He does have that air, that you might be playing in his garden or something: he stamps his authority on the ground straight away. You have to ignore all that and just play the ball.

We all had a chat with Warne, as a team, before the game. Shaun Udal knows him well from their Hampshire days so he arranged for him to come and have an informal chat with to us and he was very good. He had some good insights on cricket and life in general and how we should try and pick our season up and get some momentum up and trying to get promotion. It was fantastic to get that from a guy like him. 

I wasnt really surprised by anything Warne threw at me on the field: I find picking bowlers very easy - playing the delivery is the hard part. It doesn’t count for anything unless you can play it.

Sohail Tanvir is someone else I hadn’t faced before it’s true he has a very unusual, whippy action but I didn’t get much of a look at it – we needed to get boundaries and the first ball I faced off him was the one I got out to, the one I tried to lap-sweep…

Warne’s advice was partly about getting together as a team more often: it’s difficult for us to do it in London, which he could relate to because Victoria don’t have their own hom ground: they take their gear home with them from the MCG and don’t have their own lockers, like us at Middlesex.

When you don’t actually have a proper home ground, it can make it harder to get that team bonding going. I mean we have lockers at Lord’s – we just can’t get to them! You can’t turn up in the middle of a Test match because you’ve left your one-day pads in your locker!

(Of course, at Lord’s, it can be hard getting into a Test match even if you’re playing in it: I did 12th man for the Test match last year and on the first day I turned up I got turned away. The guy said I needed a pass and I said: “Well, I’m doing 12th man.” And he goes: ‘You’re not coming in without a pass.” So I turned away and walked off - but one of the other guys spotted me and vouched for me an they let me in.)

In terms of running his team, Shane was very laid back. He talked about being switched on as soon as you’re called upon - that’s what really matters. If you want to go and hit 50 balls beforehand or 50,000 balls before a game do that - it’s down to the individual. The Royals didn’t even go and warm up before the toss had happened. Warne bowled a couple of balls, presumably becaiuse he hadn’t played in a while. But it was all very laidback.

Having watched a lot of the second IPL, I’d say the standard is noticeably higher than the Twenty20 Cup: not just because of the overseas stars they have there, with four in every team. The local talent is something too: I’ve been to India three or four times and you come up against net bowlers - nobodies, basically - who you feel could comfortably play in county cricket. There’s just so many good players over there.