SURREY VS HAMPSHIRE SPECSAVERS COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP

Surrey have named a 14 man squad for the Specsavers County Championship match with Hampshire at the Kia Oval.
Gareth Batty’s side will be without Sri Lankan batsman Kumar Sangakkara for the game after he split the webbing in his hand in the Royal London One Day Cup final at Lord’s yesterday, whilst pace bowler Ravi Rampaul is also missing with an ankle complaint.
With Sangakkara unavailable, young batsman Ollie Pope is added to the squad.
There is no place in the squad yet again for Jade Dernbach.
Full Surrey Squad
Gareth Batty
Scott Borthwick
Rory Burns
Sam Curran
Tom Curran
Ben Foakes (wk)
Mark Footitt
Conor McKerr
Stuart Meaker
Ollie Pope
Jason Roy
Dominic Sibley
Mark Stoneman
Amar Virdi
the loss of kumar is a massive blow
Meaker and pope will miss out so it will come down between either of the currans rested so that virdi plays probably TC after the way he bowled yesterday.
Over to you chaps

Booked a week off to go watch Sanga bat and he's injured.

That's not so good.

Olly - I'll show you the museum in the members' pavilion on Tuesday. Yeah, ok, it doesn't compare to watching Sanga bat!

Very difficult as to the eleven. With no confidence and several other variations possible, I'll say Meaker, Pope and McKerr to miss out.

Evening guys, good news about Sanga being out...
(Sorry Olly)

From a Hampshire point of view, No Dawson for us as he will be busy this week carrying drinks to the England players. No Carberry either, he's been dropped from the squad due to a lack of form. Alsop likely to come in and open. Crane will play.

jimbohammers wrote:Evening guys, good news about Sanga being out...
(Sorry Olly)

From a Hampshire point of view, No Dawson for us as he will be busy this week carrying drinks to the England players. No Carberry either, he's been dropped from the squad due to a lack of form. Alsop likely to come in and open. Crane will play.

The loss of watching Sanga will be made up for if the #Cranetrain and #VirdiforEngland play in the same match. Oh and of course Guildford's tour too

Real shame that Meaker seems to have fallen out of favour. I'd like to see him back in the County Championship side as soon as possible, I'm not really sure what he did wrong to get dropped in the first place.

Batty with a calf strain, meaning Virdi plays. Meaker and Pope miss out.

McManus gone, interesting decision for him to open...

Rossouw in now, in terrible form. If he doesn't get out early, expect him to be very attacking

78/2 at lunch. Good competitive cricket being played by both sides. More from me tonight.

James100 wrote:Real shame that Meaker seems to have fallen out of favour. I'd like to see him back in the County Championship side as soon as possible, I'm not really sure what he did wrong to get dropped in the first place.

James I am too a bit perplexed as to how Meaker has now fallen behind Rampaul and McKerr in the pecking order it seems. Maybe he's been injured but it's not been disclosed? Otherwise I'd have had him in the side today ahead of young McKerr.

really didn't want us to have to bowl today after Saturday

Vince goes to 100 and then gets out! Played very well apparently but frustrating he couldn't keep going

McKerr has been awful shows the difference between division 1 and 2

thoroughly depressing

Saw most of day one. The scorecard presents a fair and accurate reflection of the play. Dominated by Adams and Vince on a good batting track.

Adams was rock solid. Sure he hadn't offered a single chance when I left a bit after 5 o'clock. Furthermore, he never looked like offering one. Content to leave or play out the decent deliveries but ready and willing to put anything away which was too wide or short. Vince was more aggressive and seemed keen to get on with it but still often with some elegance, particularly shown in his cover drives.

Surrey's bowling wasn't terrible but generally it was only ok on a day when it needed to be better than that. The Currans were just that - ok. They took 3 wickets between them and didn't get too much tap but they looked more like a support act than the stars of the show. Sam at least sent down the ball of the day, an inswinging yorker that uprooted stand-in opener McManus' off stump. I doubt that many regular openers would have got bat on that.

McKerr tried hard and kept going but looked a little out of his depth. A few useful deliveries but never really that threatening and too many four balls along the way. It would have been tough to drop him after he never got a chance to bowl on debut at Yorks; however, I did think we would have been better off today with Dernbach or Meaker replacing him. Along with Sam and Virdi, he was one of three teenagers in our bowling attack - Adams and Vince probably benefitted from that inexperience as also did Bailey later on.

Although I wasn't around to see it, I'm pleased Virdi got a wicket at the end. He deserved that for his earlier efforts. Generally bowled a good line and wasn't afraid to give it some flight. When he did get biffed, that seemed a conscious and pre-determined approach by Hants rather than bad bowling.

Fottitt's opening overs were spot on and very economical - he had confident lbw shouts against Adams and Roussow turned down - but then lost direction and control. Foakes was at his best hurling himself legside to stop a couple of wides reaching the rope.

Burns' captaincy seemed ok - that word again! He spoke to his bowlers and switched them around. They just didn't bowl well enough. Hard to see us being able to do more now than try to bat things out for a draw and that's very disappointing.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

James100 wrote:Real shame that Meaker seems to have fallen out of favour. I'd like to see him back in the County Championship side as soon as possible, I'm not really sure what he did wrong to get dropped in the first place.

James I am too a bit perplexed as to how Meaker has now fallen behind Rampaul and McKerr in the pecking order it seems. Maybe he's been injured but it's not been disclosed? Otherwise I'd have had him in the side today ahead of young McKerr.

Meaker and Dunn were bowling on the outfield at lunchtime. Neither appeared to be suffering from injury.

Meaker seems to have carried the can for our poor showing against Essex at Guildford. Particularly unfortunate for him that was around the time McKerr on loan to Derbys and pulling up trees. I would have left McKerr there to hopefully improve his game and gain further confidence. I'm not convinced it's helped anyone getting him back so soon.

Cheers for the round up, Guildford.

Hants pushing on now. Ervine hits 16 in an over off Sam Curran

T20 starts Friday

berg loves sibley

jimbobgooner wrote:berg loves sibley

(Slightly hollow) last laugh for Sibley. 648/7 dec at tea

Afternoon all. Has been rather depressing stuff. I join the club of people who were mystified at Meaker's sudden falling out of favour. Surrey 51 - 0 in reply.

50 for rocky

100 for 0

Burns brings up the 100. Deficit now falls below 550.

rocky goes to the spin of ervine

you could not make this s*** up

Had a great day today courtesy of Guildford - thank you again my man

In terms of the on field product - the pitch is dead (as Alec Stewart confirmed later in the members forum Guildford kindly got me into). Nothing in it for any bowler at this moment, coupled with a short boundary and lightning quick outfield means it's tough going for the bowlers. McKerr bowled nicely today I thought, but we bowled for a declaration. Holland was busy for Hants.

In terms of Surrey batting, Stoneman looked at ease until given out caught off his boot - he was not best pleased and Stewart later quipped when talking about Stonemans England chances "he just needs to keep making runs and not be given out caught off his boot"!

Surrey *should* be able to see out the draw here - the Hants attack did not look threatening in that final session, Edwards in particular bar the odd bouncer very erratic.

Olly - you were and always will be most welcome.

Olly didn't mention that we bumped by chance into Alec Stewart at lunchtime. Stewie stopped for a word and seemed even more disappointed than Olly that Sanga wasn't playing!

Stoneman's wicket was a real boost to Hants just when we were starting to hope it might be 650 v 650. Get nightwatchman McKerr early doors and Jimbo's boys will be buzzing even more. All aboard the #cranetrain tomorrow - think that could be busy!

Glad you guys had a good day - even if the pitch sounds a bit of a turn off...

Badly need full slate of batting points plus a draw otherwise our position in the table could start to look a little precarious.

Surrey gone into seige mentality this morning. Losing nightwatchman early and Borthwick on 3 off 34 balls so far. 16 runs score off last 10 overs. Usual concerns apply about inviting pressure by remaining scoreless for ages on what is presumably still a fairly lifeless batting stip - risks giving the bowlers massive boost of confidence.

At least Burns passed his 50.

About to press send and Borthwick falls for 3 off 36 balls!

Last 10 overs: 9 runs for 2 wickets!

Roy out for a quick 27 - morning now belongs firmly to Hants.

Burns so far batted 154 balls - which is good - but Hants had two batsmen who batted 262 /294 balls, plus two others who batted over 100 balls. We are falling way short of that level of concentration across the team at the moment.

Hi all - not at the Oval today so any pitch side interviews will have to come from Olly. I've been out all morning so not followed play as it happened. Does seem very disappointing though.

Stewart readily acknowledged yesterday that we were already playing for the draw and emphasised that we needed to be batting in our first innings tonight. He saw no great reason why we shouldn't be - only obstacles being ''scoreboard pressure which we needed to overcome through playing an hour at a time'' and the possibility of the track taking spin although he didn't think that the ball would fizz and spin quickly off the surface.

A ton for Burns although he was dropped the ball before by Ervine at slip off Edwards. A chance that Ervine would look to take ''6 times out of ten'' per Kevan James (Radio Hants and ex-Hants CCC) on comms - agree, Olly?

Olly and I were taking yesterday of the need for Burns to (at last) bat big and long in this match.

A second batting point - we can't afford to sneeze at anything!

250/4 in the 74th. Even if our wickets hold, I can't see us getting to 400 and a 5th batting point in the permitted 110 overs. My aim from here would be 350+ after 110 with a few wickets still left to get the 4th batting point and to continue going to use up more time to help secure the draw.

Once we've batted 110 overs first dig (assuming we manage that), it's just about taking overs out of the game from a Surrey perspective.

question for jimbo how the hell does Edwards get in the Hampshire side?

only surrey could make ervine look like warne

New ball due with Surrey on 265 - 4.  There's been a few byes off Crane in this innings...  Probably not the most exciting partnership between Burns and Sibley - but it's used up a decent chunk of time.

Edit - Lol - crincinfo promptly changes 4 byes to 4 for Burns...

Alexander Wharf needs to be demoted for giving rocky out disgraceful umpiring

50 for sibley

Sibley's not had the best of seasons and has been in and out the team - but this looks like a very useful innings. And while it's not exactly rapid stuff he has scored at around 40 per 100 balls.

sibley out lbw playing no shot

I assume that wicket fell to the new ball, as Abbott and Berg are bowling. Sibley and Burns put on just over hundred.

Burns has now faced 250 balls, so let's hope he can keep his concentration and really make Hants pay for dropping him earlier.

tea 300 for 5

300 - 5 at tea, and a third batting point. Still need another 200 to avoid follow on. 94 overs gone, so a fifth batting point looking unlikely, but hopefully we can get four batting point, plus still on first innings at close this evening.

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:Sibley's not had the best of seasons and has been in and out the team - but this looks like a very useful innings.  And while it's not exactly rapid stuff he has scored at around 40 per 100 balls.

Hi Corporal - yes, but ... and even though I'm writing after the event ... yet again we wanted Sibley to go on and double things in terms of runs scored and balls used up. The playing conditions and match situation here should have been ideal for his slow patient game. As so often, a useful but still frustrating innings.

I thought a few weeks ago when we were still clinging on to top spot that I didn't see us winning the Championship with him in the team. That's not to say he's rubbish or can be easily replaced but I do feel he's more a weakness than a strength if we are serious about being Championship contenders.

Meanwhile, tea and a 3rd batting point. 300/5 off 94. Exactly 50 more needed from 16 to get a 4th. JimBob might be disappointed ....

318/5 off 98. As far as Surrey fans are concerned, a good last over from Edwards conceding 9.

Games within a game. From the next 12 overs, Hants need one more wicket for a 2nd bowling point whilst Surrey need 32 runs for a 4th batting point ....

jimbobgooner wrote:question for jimbo how the hell does Edwards get in the Hampshire side?

It's a good question jimbob, wouldn't mind knowing the answer myself!
He had a very good season for us 2 years ago in div 2. Then broke his leg last season playing footy in the warm up
Think we've given him the chance to try and get back to that form he showed. He's done well in the seconds recently but i am not
convinced.

foakes gives his wkt away