Mark Church on his Twenty20 Gold

21 May 2009

BBC London 94.9's Mark Church blogs about his favourite memories from six years of Surrey's Twenty20 matches.

It had been a pretty good Quarter Final anyway – between Surrey and Warwickshire – and it had all come down to the last over. As usual, I was getting overexcited on BBC London 94.9, and alongside me Danny Kelly, a member of broadcasting royalty, was equally robust.

All I remember is it coming down to the last ball, The Bears hitting two, Ali Brown fielding the ball,  Surrey celebrating and – in my greatest BBC tones – me telling the listening public that Surrey had advanced to finals day. We then summed the game up and went to news and travel.

During that break for news and travel , we began to realise that something was afoot. There seemed to be a bit of a commotion and word got to us that there may have been a slight problem with the result. In fact, word got to us that there might be a bowl out.

After hearing that the M25 was jammed yet again at Junction Three, BBC London crossed back to us and told us to "fill"( a technical term for keep talking!!). We had no idea what was going on but kept waxing lyrically. Thankfully with Mr. Kelly there that was not a problem and that gave me time to jump into the rule book to find out what a bowl out actually was!

Whilst all this was going on, a few players emerged onto the Brit Oval outfield with a look of confusion on their faces. It was getting darker and it was getting harder and harder to see exactly what was going on. After an hour of myself and Kelly talking to each other, news reached us that there was in fact going to be a bowl out.

The patient souls that had stayed inside the ground were then treated to the sight of the Surrey and Warwickshire teams filing back out into the middle, in the dark, and Kelly and I getting even more excited.

The e-mails were flooding in and both sides picked their five bowlers who would attempt to hit the stumps from 22 yards.

I will not bore you with a ball by ball summary of the bowl out, all I will say, the ball that stands out in my mind was Nayan Doshi’s. Dosh pitched one a foot outside the leg stump and ripped it over the top of the off stump. It was a glorious delivery to any batsman and was unplayable. Sadly, there was no batsman out there and it missed the stumps.

Then of course, it all came down to Tim Murtagh. I was screaming down the microphone “ It all comes down to this – sudden death! If Murtagh hits, Surrey are through to Finals Day!!”

Away in the gloom, Murtagh turned and I uttered the famous lines “Here comes Murtagh…. And he hits!” At which point, Murtagh wheeled away, taking off his shirt, and sprinted towards the OCS Stand.

It was a night to remember for all involved and I have only just recovered from the drama of 2005!

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