Steven Finn did his hopes of receiving an England Test recall no harm with three wickets as Middlesex defeated Sussex at Lord's to claim their third LV= County Championship win of the summer.
Finn followed up his three first-innings scalps with 3-66 as Sussex were bowled out for 225 in their second innings. That left Middlesex with a target of 18 and they completed a 10-wicket victory 40 minutes after tea on the final day.
Middlesex looked like wrapping up proceedings early when they reduced Sussex to 101 for five prior to lunch.
They were delayed by Ben Brown's second half-century of the match, but when he and Naveed Arif departed in successive overs Sussex were heading for their second successive championship defeat.
Finn, who had already picked up Ed Joyce on the third evening, was taken for two fours by Chris Nash in his first over of the day but hit back in the next when he cleaned up the Sussex opener with a leg-stump yorker.
Finn struck again when Murray Goodwin was smartly taken low down at second slip by Ollie Rayner. It was Goodwin's ninth single-figure score in 11 innings this season.
There was no respite for Sussex when Gareth Berg replaced Finn at the Pavilion End. Joe Gatting was leg before in the seamer’s first over and then Finn got in the act in the field, holding a two-handed catch when Luke Wright chased a wide ball from Berg and slashed to gully.
Skipper Michael Yardy also got out to a poor shot, pulling a short ball from Toby Roland-Jones straight to deep square-leg.
Finn returned after lunch and should have been celebrating again when Arif was badly dropped in the gully by Eoin Morgan on nought. He eventually got off the mark with a boundary off the 34th ball he faced and gradually Sussex's seventh-wicket pair mounted a recovery of sorts.
Brown twice pulled Roland-Jones for two of the eight fours he collected in a two-hour 53 as he and Arif added 63 in 25 overs, seven of which were bowled by Finn at a cost of just five runs.
Just when Middlesex were getting frustrated Berg went round the wicket to have Arif well caught low down at slip by Dawid Malan and in the next over Brown, having reached his fifty off the previous ball, mis-judged a reverse sweep at off-spinner Rayner and gave a simple catch to slip.
Steve Magoffin enjoyed himself either side of tea with 37, including six fours and a six off Malan, but the occasional leg-spinner picked up the last two wickets with Magoffin and Monty Panesar holing out.
Source: www.ecb.co.uk
Rupert Murdoch and me: eminent historian tells of Middle East road trip - The Guardian
Asa Briggs, the historian and founder vice chancellor of Sussex University, has revealed that in 1952 he went on a somewhat unconventional camping holiday around the Middle East, sleeping rough, with his then pupil at Worcester College, Oxford, one Rupert Murdoch. Shortly after his return he was asked to break the news to Rupert of his father's death.
Rupert's father, Sir Keith Murdoch, had loaned them the use of his brand new Ford Zephyr for the trip and had driven to Istanbul with his son, where the journey began. "It still stands out in my mind," Lord Briggs, 91, writes in a semi-autobiographical book published last week. In it, he also reveals that in several countries they visited Rupert was thought to be Jewish.
Accompanying them was a fellow of Worcester College, Harry Pitt, and another Australian undergraduate, George Masterman. "We met Rupert and George in what had been Constantinople, now Istanbul. Rupert had travelled there with his father in the Zephyr, which he had promised his father he would send back to Australia by sea from Port Said. They had had trouble... in crossing Yugoslavia. Curiously, Rupert was to have trouble too in Jordan."
"King Abdullah had recently been assassinated, upsetting the whole balance of power in the Arab world, and there were many signs of tension in all the places on our journey beyond Turkey, through Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. There were Arabs who thought the name Murdoch was associated with the name Mordecai.
"The long journey through Turkey and into Syria was not easy because there were few really modern roads. For most of our long journey we talked freely to each other but not to the Turks about the fate of the Ottoman empire and the rise to power of Atatürk."
The road played havoc with the Zephyr, and so did Murdoch's antics in the town of Aydin, where they were forced to stop for major car repairs: "We felt that even if we did not have to spend the night in gaol because of Rupert's mischievousness in tossing out of the window a small piece of local handicraft which he was taking back as a gift, we might at least have the car confiscated.
"There, and elsewhere, we often had to sleep in the open air: we had taken sleeping bags with us. The Turkish police were very suspicious about our doing this."
He recalls that when they were visiting Nicea they were abruptly awakened by the police in the night. "I felt then that we were living in a very different past: we had no news of what was happening that day in the world outside."
Eventually, the small party crossed into Syria and spent the night in the relative comfort of a hotel in Aleppo, before moving on to Damascus, and Arab Jerusalem. They were not allowed to cross into the Jewish sector, and so tried, but were unable, to visit Petra. Then it was on to Lebanon, "where again we slept in the open, sleeping more comfortably and less disturbed in the banana groves" before reaching Beirut. "The atmosphere at the border itself was unpleasant. The Lebanese did not like the Syrians any more than the Syrians liked the Israelis.
"At this stage of the journey we were all short of money, even Rupert, and we made contact with the father of an Oxford postgraduate student who generously offered to lend us what he needed. We arranged to meet him in the market the following day. Our benefactor did not turn up; he had died in the night. He had arranged for us to have the money, however, and all that we could leave behind by way of heartfelt thanks were our blessings."
They went on to Cairo, took a camel ride to the pyramids and great sphinx, and caught a ship home to Southampton from Port Said, which was full of dissatisfied British emigrants returning from Australia. They had taken advantage of cheap tickets to go and settle there, only to find it had not worked out. "It is not difficult, more than fifty years later, to conjure up Rupert's language about these 'pommies', stronger than anything he ever used about the Egyptians. He was at his most Aussie then. Throughout most of our trip I had learnt from him for the first time in my life how strong the spoken language can be."
Since Rupert's Oxford days, Briggs writes, he has kept in touch only irregularly, but he received a handwritten letter on his ninetieth birthday, and Murdoch turned up in person for a seventieth party at Oxford.
But he notes that, on the return from Port Said in 1952, "he used his own Aussie influence to get a far better cabin than I did, and got off the ship at Marseilles, and travelled back to London by train".
Shortly afterwards, Briggs had "the incredibly difficult task" of telling Rupert of his father's death. "Elisabeth, a great woman, rang and asked me to tell him. He was deeply shocked and returned to Melbourne at once. Thereafter there was a great silent bond between his mother and me".
Special Relationships, People and Places, by Asa Briggs, is published by Frontline Books, £19.99
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
Sussex tail frustrate Finn with England paceman set to resume his Test career - Daily Mail
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Steve Finn, about to restart his Test career, faced spirited resistance from the Sussex tail as Middlesex made hard work of victory at Lord’s.
Finn made the early inroads, nipping out Chris Nash with a cracking yorker and Murray Goodwin to leave Sussex 64-3 and needing 208 to make Middlesex bat again.
Hard day's work: Finn
But after Eoin Morgan dropped Naveed Arif off him in the slips, Finn was allowed to leave the hard work to his colleagues as the pitch grew flatter, his final figures of 3-66 giving him six wickets in the match.
Finn declined to speak afterwards, seemingly not wishing to comment on Jimmy Anderson being rested for the third Test.
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
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