Fours and sixes fall out of fashion

Darren Bravo was one of the few batsmen to get to grips with a testing surface

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‘Where have all the boundaries gone?’, has been a common refrain during the early stages of the Stanford Super Series.

For those whose introduction to cricket came via Twenty20, this is understandable, as they have been brought up on images of balls disappearing out of grounds the length and breadth of England.

Spectators in Antigua over the last three days may not have had much opportunity to strain their necks, but Trinidad & Tobago’s nerve-wracking triumph over Middlesex served as proof that a shortage of runs does not automatically translate into a lack of entertainment.

This was comfortably the most exciting match of the competition thus far, and the fact that there was $280,000 at stake for the winners enhanced rather than created the sense of fervour.

That the game would go down the last over seemed unthinkable when Middlesex mustered a meagre 117 for eight after winning the toss, yet the English Twenty20 champions would have been considered favourites to triumph with as little as 30 deliveries remaining.

The task of scoring nine an over off the last five overs - when they had managed less than five for the previous 15 - appeared beyond Trinidad, especially when you throw in the added pressure of a bumper pay day for the winners.

But that was to underestimate the impact of the dollar-bill effect on Middlesex, whose composure deserted them when they needed it most.

Ed Joyce had already given Darren Bravo one let-off at long-on when Neil Carter put down a straightforward chance at backward point off the final ball of the 16th over.

Warwickshire all-rounder Carter - signed on loan specifically for this tournament - was brought back into the attack for the next over, but saw his first delivery hoisted to long-off by Denesh Ramdin and pushed over the rope for six by a crestfallen Eoin Morgan.

Carter’s fourth ball, a beamer, was slashed over third man by Ramdin, umpire Rudi Koertzen added insult to injury by calling a no-ball, and Trinidad ended the over 18 runs the good and with the winning post firmly in sight.

Eoin Morgan drops Denesh Ramdin - then watches the ball go for six in the pivotal over of the match

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It was a cruel way to lose a match (Middlesex, in hindsight, may trace the root of their demise to a stilted batting display) yet it provided Sir Allen Stanford, whose name adorns the winners’ cheques, and the remainder of those packed inside his stadium at Coolidge with the first genuinely close finish of the week.

I have always found a low-scoring thriller much more watchable than a run-fest in which conditions are so heavily weighted in favour of the bat that bowlers become victims of sporting humiliation.

I suspect I am in the minority here - certainly, the West Indian fan at the England-Middlesex game who came close to crying because he did not have enough opportunities to wave his ‘4’ and ‘6’ cards will disagree - but is there not a case to be made that when boundaries are so hard to come by, you appreciate them all the more when they do?

Neil Dexter’s innings of 39 off 25 balls was worth double on some county grounds in England, while Ramdin’s brilliant 41 - spanning just 28 deliveries - was arguably more deserving of the match award than Ravi Rampaul’s haul of 4-25.

However, mid-innings scorecards of 40 for four and 46 for two for Middlesex and Trinidad respectively suggest the pitch in Antigua is unfairly hampering the free-flowing batsmen from showcasing their talents, and a highest individual score of 45 in three matches is surely not what Stanford had in mind when he pitched his 20/20 for 20 idea to the world.

Still, he could ask for little more than a last-over finish in the first money-spinning clash of his Super Series, and Trinidad and Middlesex duly delivered amid an increasingly expectant atmosphere in the stands, the dressing rooms and living rooms across the world..

Who knows? Maybe he even appreciated the irony that Bravo wrapped up a match notably lacking in boundaries with the biggest six of the evening.