Apologies for that digression and so to business. I come up from the glass canyons of Canary Wharf to HQ on school night cricket and I am starting to warm to the Jubilee Line. Architecturally it is of course fantastic but it deposits me out of St John’s Wood in about half an hour flat.

Which allows me to get a couple of those novelty kids beakers of Fosters before play. Which is nice if a little demeaning.

We go off to the perfect start Diggler forcing Newman to fend one to Scotty. It lifted and snorted and patted his head on the way through. It was my first real look at the Dirk boy and he does look a handful. He bowled brilliantly. I think he went for 3 odd and Timbo (who bowled well bar the second over) went for 10 odd. I think only Shaggy came close on both sides in terms of economy but its more than that. Three is a sense that something will happen when he has the ball. The crowd know it. Every time he was announced there was a palpable buzz in the ground (can a buzz be palpable?). TSO did it last year. Maybe Nannes is the TESO.

After that start we settled into watching the Jordan Benning show which I said sounded like a porn star. It was considerably less exciting than that. Me and my father in law are still psychologically battered from one fateful day (two years ago?) when Benning and Brown crucified our attack on strip about three yards from the Tavern stand. I think they were 100 for 0 off 10. We lost that day needless to say.

We were worried about Benning. We needn’t have been. He didn’t play badly. He just didn’t do what he was supposed to do. He poked, he prodded, he played proper shots, he picked out fielders with unerring accuracy, he fiddled and he fudged and we laughed and laughed and laughed.

I read today he surpassed Jimmy Maher's record for the lowest individual score for any player carrying their bat in the Twenty 20. I think the record is his for a long long time. You will notice the Lords’ commentator has to say things like "and that was [X] out for [Y} off only [Z] balls". The idea being that Y is a very large number and Z a very small number. 50 off 53 doesn’t make it and if the commentator had tried he would have snorted with laughter. It took him 78 minutes to do it. In sharp and high definition contrast to Ramps who managed to make an absolute balloon out of himself in just 5 minutes flat.

I won’t go into the Ramps good v evil debate but he doesn’t do himself any favours at all. I understand he has quite a temper and with sportsmen you like to see the devil in people (Jimmy White, Roy Keane, Tonya Harding…) but undiluted and outright muppetry is another thing.

Back to the game – the Surrey batting line-up looked pretty potent and the young fella Jordan did well with both bat and ball. The strength of batting made Benning’s crawl all the more curious. We assumed Boom Boom came up the order to provide impetus but both he, Afzaal and Brown did their impression of Groundhog Day. Come in, smack one boundary and whack one up for Captain to catch in the deep.

Captain Morgan, by the way, is an excellent fielder and at times it looked like the ball was magnetically drawn to him. Afzaal was actually caught by Joyce in the covers but you know what I mean. One Irish fella is much like another.

On the Surrey innings (and there were snorts of derision as one Surrey batsman after another emerged before Ramps – we didn’t realise he was injured – we half expected Peg Leg McGrew to trot out before him) it was clear they lacking something in confidence. Saying that, we bowled well, Diggler and Shaggy especially. Timbo took some pongo (as Bumble would say) early on but recovered well - Henderson and TSO were good – although I can’t even think about that run-out. Scandalous was about as kind as I can say. He could have made it over on a space hopper and whipped of the bails before the Brown could make his ground. It was a "what happened next" moment. Pink shirts and faces all round…..

Still and with all 141 was not easy. And so it proved. Billy G was out leg before to Collins who looked tasty and Strauss made a horlicks of a full toss from Dernbach and chopped on to his stumps. I was reading he was really looking forward to 20-20 and not to be safe boring Andy. Ell, he certainly wasn’t that.

We steadied really well after that and Captain especially hit some lovely shots clubbing Razzaq for a big six to boot. Our innings felt different. We had our tails up as you would have expect from a team who can’t seem to lose just now - however at 63-4 we looked a bit vulnerable – its worse when you’re there - you don’t a have the clarity of a gimlet eye but in retrospect the Irish boys did the hard yards and (Inter or AC?) and Scotty did the sensible thing.

I thought those last two deserved quite a bit of credit. Its all very well to come out swinging at everything (see Surrey middle order) but we had time and balls to spare and they batted very sensibly – saying that, Dawid hit 6 fours which was two less than the Gasworks XI managed in total.

One of my Essex mates came to the game with me and he was very impressed with him at the Essex game.

I missed that because I was in Derbyshire based on the vain hope that Middlesex might have got drawn to play the Chesterfield festival – a ground I have always wanted to see – so I booked the family holiday and surprise surprise it didn’t coincide. Probability is not my thing. At least 9 times out of 10 it isn’t.

I went along anyway to the Queens Park ground which was really nice and a lovely day to boot although with Worcs 19-1 overnight I really did think I would see a full day. All out before lunch. I have seen Hick the three times now and I don’t think he has ever lasted more than 5 minutes under my albatross eye. If he reads this he might get a restraining order out on me.

Anyways with that deep sixed we headed off to Ashford in the Water which we had spotted on the way up and watched the home side play Hallam. Hallam have a very useful left arm seamer who is about thirteen. I don’t know his name – Percy Icklethwaite or some such no doubt. Anyways if you’re ever up that way do go – lovely village lovely pub and a nice cricket pitch.

With a hop and a skip back to London my final word goes to Scotty – I think everything about him is made for this game - he is non-stop encouraging cajoling - he keeps brilliantly, stands up and had a cool head to see us home although I was please AC got it running down to whallop spigot for four to end the game.

Happy days all round – top of the league after 4 game exceeds all but the certifiably insane’s expectations. Long way to go though – the two games v Kent will be crucial – they are a side we have had the better of recently but have failed in the final overs – I do think this Middlesex team is made of sterner stuff and really do think we can go some way in this competition.

As for me – happy amble to the Volunteer (laughing at the tannoy playing Come on Eileen as Benning pondered on)– a bucketload of ale – laughing at my Surrey mates dejection and home to bed. I can’t ask for more than that.