MIDDLESEX’S Tom Smith was still in short trousers when the movie ‘Forest Gump’ was big at the box office.
Yet as the panthers’ Twenty/20 campaign hit the buffers this week the 22-year-old left-arm spinner’s reflections were strangely reminiscent of namesake Tom Hanks’ best one liner, from his 1994 portrayal of an intellectually challenged Vietnam War hero.
Hollywood Hall of famer Hanks won an Oscar for lines like ‘my momma used to say life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what one you’re gonna get.’
But, sadly for Smith, Middlesex’s similarly unpredictable nature in the shortest form of the game looks set to yield no such accolades following back-to-back defeats to Hampshire and Gloucester at the Uxbridge Festival.
The losses leave the tenants of Lord’s needing to win on the road against Essex and Hampshire this week and pray for miracles elsewhere if they are to progress to the knockout stages.
Smith said: "You’re not sure which team is going to turn up and it’s something we as players have been trying to put our fingers on.
“If we start a game or an innings well we tend to carry it on, but if they come at us the match has been tending to slip away."
That was clearly the story over the two games over the weekend as the hosts were twice unable to defend a score thanks to some dreadful bowling in the opening power-play overs.
In Saturday’s game with the Hawks an under-par score of 164 courtesy of 80 from Owais Shah was comfortably overhauled as the Panthers attack leaked 50 inside five overs.
Twenty-four hours later it was Groundhog Day as Gloucester’s Gladiators pummelled 78 from the first six, rendering Dawid Malan’s 86 from 44 balls fruitless.
This form was a marked contrast to recent wins over league leaders Sussex and archrivals Surrey.
Smith denied the inconsistency was the product of a young side, suggesting instead the glut of new faces like Scott Newman, Pedro Collins, Iain O’Brien and David Warner, not to mention himself might be the root of the problem.
He added: "There is an issue with new players in the team as in we haven’t perhaps gelled together. The sides we play against may have one or two new faces, whereas we seem to have four or five this year.
“We are getting there I think as there have been good performances. We’ve taken Sussex and some other big sides down but it’s just the gelling together is taking time."
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