MATT NICHOLSON

We caught up with Matt Nicholson shortly after Surrey had taken twenty wickets for the first time this season in the County Championship, against Durham at the Oval. Matt led the way by accounting for seven of those to fall, plus he looked back on the "experience" of playing Sussex in the dark in the Twenty20...

Marcus Hook: Twenty wickets in a match. That must be a good feeling for you and the guys. Of course, you played your part by taking seven of them...
Matt Nicholson: Yeah, I felt like I bowled well in the first innings. I think they contributed a lot to their own downfall, as we did when we batted. But I didn't feel I actually bowled that well in the second innings, but I kept running in so… and got a bit of luck. That's the way it goes sometimes. I think as a group, as a bowling unit we put enough balls in the right sorts of spots. That's what we're looking to do as the season goes on, as a group put some pressure on. Again, they probably contributed to their own downfalls, but we kept trying kept getting the ball in the right sort of areas…

MH: Of course, if Ramps had taken that catch at gully to get rid of Phil Mustard for nought off your bowling, Durham would have been in even more trouble on day one. But it wasn't the easiest of chances to say the least...
MN: Ramps will probably say it's one he would have expected to have taken. At the end of the day we were in a good position in the game and taking twenty wickets is a start. We can get better from here, so…Who could say what would have happened, but that's the way it goes - that's cricket. You can't catch them all.

MH: Considering we lost the toss and they batted, I guess you must have been pleased to have bowled Durham out for less than 200. Normally at the Oval, if a side wins the toss and bats, you're normally looking at twice that...
MN: I think we've only won one toss all season in the championship. I read that that was the lowest first innings score at the Oval for five years, so we were obviously very pleased with that. I don't know how much of a factor coming off Twenty20 then playing championship cricket was, but it seems to have affected the batting of both teams. There was nothing wrong with the pitch, particularly when the ball got old. When the ball got old it was a good pitch to bat on. Maybe coming off Twenty20 you're not watching the ball as closely as you probably should. In the Twenty20 you can get into the habit of not watching the ball as closely as you might do in a four-day game, because generally you know where the bowler's going to bowl the ball, particularly if you're batting at the end. That's my take on it rather than the fact that people are just trying to slog because they're used to slogging. The guys know it's a four-day game, they know they've got to bat for longer periods of time. It's a different game, a different field size. Blokes are professional enough to mentally to apply themselves. I think it's maybe more of a technical thing, in terms of watching the ball.

MH: One guy who did keep his eyes on the ball and batted really well in the first dig was Stewart Walters. There aren't too many people who can say they have hooked Steve Harmison for two sixes in three overs...
MN: Stewie's been waiting a long time for his opportunity. I think he played three games last year. He's been getting a lot of runs in the seconds. He's a class act and I suppose if he was playing at another county he would have played a lot of games by now. But he's stuck it out here and I think he'll be here for a long time. You can see he's a quality player. He's got a bit of steel about him. He's a tough guy, he's very fit and he's very focused on what he wants to do. He's waited a long time for his opportunity, so he's not going to throw it away. But he's also got the ability to back it up, so I think Surrey fans might see him around for a while.

MH: And it was good to see both Neil Saker and Jade Dernbach being given the chance to show what they can do as well...
MN: They're obviously two different types of bowlers. Jade's more of an impact-style bowler. He did his job in the second innings, getting the first breakthrough. Sakes is more of a containing-style bowler. He swings the ball around, probably gets the ball in the right area more. But maybe that's what you need in an attack. You need a few blokes who are a bit different. Different actions and different styles, so the batsmen aren't constantly going through the same motions. Even though we're all right-armers, we've got a leg-spinner, we've got an off-spinner, all of us are a little bit different. Hopefully, as we all get better as individuals, those differences will hold us in good stead.

MH: Obviously, Azhar's not able to play for us any more. Perhaps it's too early to say, but what's the transition to having Harbhajan Singh around been like?
MN: Azhar obviously offers you a bit more in the batting department and Azhar's departure means that one of the young quicks gets a go, so it's good in that sense. But the Durham game was the first game in a while for Harbhajan. I was talking to him and when he missed out on selection for India's tour here, he decided he was going to have a rest for a while. So he hasn't bowled much. It was all organised very quickly. He's been bowling in the nets, but he hasn't played for quite a while, so you just need to give him some time to adjust. He's not long off the plane, but you could see from what he did against Durham he's obviously a class act. If we can win the toss a few times and get to bat first, with the three or four spinners we've got, whoever's playing on those particular days are going to be hard work with Harbhajan at one end. It's great to have a world-class spinner in your attack, because you can plug him in from one end and rotate the quicks from the other, which'll give me a bit of a rest as a quick.

MH: If I can take you back to Friday night, when Surrey exited the Twenty20 Cup, what was the dressing room like after you lost to Kent?
MN: Obviously everyone was pretty disappointed, but it's gone now. There's nothing we can do about it, so we need to get on with what we're doing now.

MH: And what was it like playing in the dark, against Sussex?
MN: It was terrible. I mean we just shouldn't have played. I'm not sure why we played, I'm not sure where the pressure came from to play, but we shouldn't have been playing. It was dangerous. We were very lucky that someone didn't end up with a serious injury. It was hard to see the ball when you were batting. You couldn't see it when you were fielding. The ground was slippery, like an ice rink. At the end of the day it's great entertainment for the people that did turn up. It was probably good entertainment for the people watching on TV, but as I said they're lucky someone didn't do a serious injury. If you don't pick up a short ball and it hits you in the throat or something like that, which can happen easily. It turned out to be great entertainment. It cost us the chance of going through, but we shouldn't have been playing. If you can play cricket in those conditions then you should never call it off, we may as well play in all types of conditions.

MH: Are you saying it would have been unplayable even if, say, there had been floodlights?
MN: If there had been floodlights it would have been a different story. The main issue was the darkness, because if you don't pick up a short ball or you're fielding and you don't see it, cricket balls are hard and you can get a serious injury. Slipping over in the field or when you're bowling is another issue. But, as I said, we were lucky we got through the game without a serious injury, because I think if there had been a serious injury questions would be asked. At the end of the day we're here to entertain and we did that, but I hope I never play in a game like that ever again, put it that way.

MH: Of course, if that match had been called off, Surrey would still be in the competition...
MN: With the Middlesex game we could say we got done by the weather, but we didn't get enough runs and the same in the second game against Kent, not enough runs. We were looking at 180 as a par score there and we ended up with 145. That can happen in Twenty20, that's the way it goes. It's such a short game if you have one or two bad overs, when you lose a few wickets or whatever, the game's gone. To get into the position where we had to win our last game, we should probably have defended our score up at Essex, we should have done better against Middlesex, in the five-over game, as bad as the conditions were, we had as much chance to win as Sussex did. The conditions were the same for both teams, but we weren't good enough that night either. At the end of the day if you don't get enough points, then you're not good enough. We'll have to live with that. It's the first time Surrey haven't made it to the semis, but that's gone now, we've got to concentrate on the championship now.

JULY 2007

To see the April 2007 interview, with Alan Butcher, click HERE 
To see the May 2007 interview, with Chris Schofield, click HERE