surrey vs essex eagles YB40

First topic message reminder :

Team Director Chris Adams has named a thirteen man squad for the Yorkshire Bank 40 game against the Essex Eagles this evening at the Ford County Ground.
Ricky Ponting and Azhar Mahmood are both named in the squad but Chris Tremlett is rested. .Tim Linley comes in for Jade Dernbach who is playing for England in the One Day series against New Zealand
The whole game is being broadcast by Sky Sports 2 with coverage getting underway at 16:30
The Surrey squad for the YB40 game against the Essex Eagles on Monday 3rd June at the Ford County Ground:
Gareth Batty (capt)
Jason Roy
Steven Davies
Ricky Ponting
Vikram Solanki
Zander de Bruyn
Gary Wilson
Azhar Mahmood
Tom Jewell
Jon Lewis
Gary Keedy
Stuart Meaker
Tim Linley
jewell and linley/meaker to miss out imo

Jesus H effin Christ!

I had a late call-up to write the match report for this game - http://deepextracover.com/home/napier-starts-as-essex-demolish-sorry-surrey/.

Sorry if I come across as a little harsh on Surrey but, after that performance, I'm not sure I could be anything else.

Is that our worst ever 40 overs defeat? To lose by nearly 4.5 runs per over must be some kind of record.

You were nowhere near harsh enough Shelsey! Heads must roll after this - starting with Adams, and if Brain-less ever plays again for us.............it'll be too soon

Shelsey - that was an extremely good report. ''Hapless'' is entirely appropriate for our performance. [I was out most of yesterday evening but watched a 'live' recording from the 32nd over of Essex's innings - that was when the Brain had seizures and, to put it kindly, Jewell failed to sparkle!]

The one person who seems fortunate to escape your criticism is Solanki in his role as captain. Ok, he had to stand in for a stand in (Batty for Smith) and that can't have been easy. However, I felt the bowling spells were too formulaic and quite often too long. Surely it would have been better to get Jewell's spell finished sooner rather than later. He really seemed to be thrown to the wolves (or the eagles in this case) having to come back on for his second over in the 33rd. I'm pretty sure Jewell hadn't even bowled in the CB40 this season before last night.

There also seemed very little encouragement or support provided by the acting captain to his bowlers and fielders.

Also, I felt at the time of winning the toss that the decision not to bat was very odd. With the benefit of hindsight, it seems bl**dy ludicrous. To be fair, I suspect that was far more Adams' decision than Solanki's.

I have a bit of sympathy for Jewell but ultimately he didn't help himself. Being mentally at ease is so important in top class sport. Forgive the mini-lecture but I'm sure most would agree. Jewell almost missed out on selection for the starting eleven as he was stuck in traffic and only just reached the ground in time. That can't have done any good for his peace of mind. It seems harsh to say that was Jewell's fault if the journey was unexpectedly awful. However, I can't but help think of the office analogy - if the Chairman is late for a meeting, everyone smiles. If the graduate trainee operating the powerpoint is late, it's a capital offence. Sometimes some people just can't afford to be late.

Carrotdude wrote:Every now and then Napier looks like a very good bowler, tonight he has been fantastic to be fair. Surrey, on the other hand, have been woeful.

You simply have to ask questions of Adams now. From signing Lewis, Keedy, Solanki and continuing with de Bruyn, messing Roy about, never settling on an opening pair and the seeming lack of coaching for both bowlers and batsmen. Now we've got Jordan showing what might have been at Sussex and we've just been utterly humiliated by Essex.

What I will say is Jewell showed today why he hasn't played much, looked completely out of his depth.

I agree totally about the lack of coaching.

With regard to the batting look at our top 2 last night. Both are fantastic players, but Roy seems to have gone backwards over a cliff this season and I am getting fed up with Davies constantly getting himself out with schoolboy errors.

As an Essex fan, I was delighted with the result, and with Napier's continued rich vein of form. The main thing is that we got Ponting out cheap

Azzy Mahmood wrote:As an Essex fan, I was delighted with the result, and with Napier's continued rich vein of form. The main thing is that we got Ponting out cheap

Give me a choice between Essex winning by 1 run after a Ponting century, or us losing by 1 run after a Ponting golden duck, and I'd have to choose the latter. I hate him more than I love my own team!

I was shocked at how easily we won though, a couple of months ago Surrey were going to conquer the world with Smith + Pietersen + Ponting, and now it's all unravelling. I sympathise with you guys.

Azzy Mahmood wrote:Give me a choice between Essex winning by 1 run after a Ponting century, or us losing by 1 run after a Ponting golden duck, and I'd have to choose the latter. I hate him more than I love my own team!

I was shocked at how easily we won though, a couple of months ago Surrey were going to conquer the world with Smith + Pietersen + Ponting, and now it's all unravelling. I sympathise with you guys.

Shelsey93 wrote:I had a late call-up to write the match report for this game....Sorry if I come across as a little harsh on Surrey but, after that performance, I'm not sure I could be anything else.

Shelsey - no complaints whatever about that article! Could easily have include a few more compliments along the lines of "dire", "rudderless", etc

sounds like I was very fortunately to completely miss out on this debacle
When one's reached rock bottom, there's normally only one way to go....
have we reached that stage yet I wonder? An equally depressing thought is that we have reached rock bottom and improve marginally so that we end up being poor and rudderless rather than utterly dire