SURREY VS LANCASHIRE SPECSAVERS COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP

First topic message reminder :

For the last time this year
Surrey have named a fourteen man squad for the final Specsavers County Championship match of the summer, against Lancashire at Emirates Old Trafford.
The game starts tomorrow at 10.30am, with the squad containing all eleven players that beat Somerset at the Kia Oval last week as well as spin pair Amar Virdi and Freddie van den Bergh and all-rounder Scott Borthwick.
It will be Kumar Sangakkara’s final first-class match, with the Sri Lankan legend leaving the club and retiring from long form cricket at the end of the season.
Full Surrey Squad
Gareth Batty (captain)
Scott Borthwick
Rory Burns
Rikki Clarke
Sam Curran
Jade Dernbach
Ben Foakes (wk)
Stuart Meaker
Ryan Patel
Ollie Pope
Kumar Sangakkara
Mark Stoneman
Freddie van den Bergh
Amar Virdi
Thank you to everybody who has contributed over the year
Over to you chaps

Could prove to be a good game - honours very even so far.

Time to review the three contentious decisions by Surrey I mentioned before.

1. Decision to leave out VDB and Virdi to go in with four seamers - still looks suspect in my opinion despite reasonable figures from Borthwick.

2. Decision to opt for a toss thereby effectively choosing to bat first - jury still out but may yet pay off.

3. Decision to declare - still looking unhelpful and definitely hasn't enhanced Surrey's chances in this match.

Excellent work from Rocky & Rory to get us a lead and more importantly see us safely to stumps.

Effectively now a one innings shoot out with us resuming in the morning on 12/0.

Still irritated by the declaration. If we had batted on last night, we could be 30 odd runs better off now. We might have scored another 15 or 20 runs and Lancs wouldn't have had the time to put 17 on the board before stumps.

Brisk start this morning - with Stoneman rattling along. Currently 70 off 77 balls.

You currently have the only 3 batsmen with over 1000 CC div 1 runs this year...

Possible that Trott and Ballance could get there too, and a couple of others with big scores, but it's currently a little statistical quirk...

Indeed, Dummy - mixture of pure class (Sanga), dogged consistency (Burns) and fairly good + rich vein of form (Stoneman). Pity the bowlers can't quite match that. Rikki Clarke has done very well since he rejoined Surrey - but you have to look a very long way down the bowling averages to find most of the Surrey contingent.

Probably tells you something about the Oval wicket as well, as does your record - 2 wins, 1 loss and 10 draws.

Is the idea today for Burns and Stoneman to get enough to allow you to declare without Sangakarra getting a bat and risking his >100 average for the season?

Ending the season by collapsing to Liam Livingstone

dummy_half wrote:Probably tells you something about the Oval wicket as well, as does your record - 2 wins, 1 loss and 10 draws.

Is the idea today for Burns and Stoneman to get enough to allow you to declare without Sangakarra getting a bat and risking his >100 average for the season?

A mix of easy batting tracks and ordinary bowling plus a bit of bad weather. Surrey's cricket management have been too keen to put the blame on the last one.

It was a nice thought but, as so often, Sanga's now required to put in a full shift on his last day(s). From 154/0 to 160/4.

6 down now!

182/6 on the board but a lead of only 115.

All the wickets to slow men, 4 to Livingstone and 2 to Parry strengthening Voice of the Beehive's suspicion that that we should have picked Freddie or Virdi.

At least Sanga is still there and joined now by Clarke.

Declare now Batty....you effing dope

Clarke falls lbw to Livingstone on the brink of lunch. Now 197/7. 30 minutes or so earlier we were 154/0.

Livingstone has a fivefer, his first in first class cricket. In the words of Churchy, ''It's spinning. That's the thing. He's getting it to absolutely go.''

Not opting to bowl at the start, declaring on day one, misreading the wicket and not including a frontline spinner alongside Batty - we've mucked up a bit, eh chaps?

Can we just declare so Sanga ends the season with an average of 100+ so we at least have one positive to come from this match

Nothing like ending the season on a high! And this is certainly nothing like that! Batty out, Batty out!

Well done tail, what has Dernbach ever done, a complete waste of a position

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Can we just declare so Sanga ends the season with an average of 100+ so we at least have one positive to come from this match

We decided to get all out instead - Sanga ends with 1491 runs with 8 hundreds at an average of 106.50 from 10 first class games this summer

What a man

Three golden ducks and a second ball - is that a record?

Tea. Lancs need 103 more with 9 wickets in hand.

Could be all over tonight, especially if the umpires add an extra half-hour believing a result is likely.

Very poor so far and I don't see that changing.

57 more needed by Lancs with 7 wickets left. 18 overs left tonight but I think the umpires could add an extra 30 minutes tonight to get a result provided the weather (light?) holds.

Borthwick hasn't bowled yet in this innings. Surprising given Livingstone's success today and Batty saying at the start of the match that Borthwick was included for tactical reasons in case more spin was needed.

A mess. A right mess.

He has now Guildford, just the dozen off his first over

With that, Borthwick comes on and goes for 12 in his first over including a maximum struck by Livingstone.

As Beehive has suggested, it seems clear we should have included Freddie or Virdi. Meaker hasn't bowled in this innings.

They've gone off for bad light, it can only be that our fielders can't find the ball as it disappears over the boundary

guildfordbat wrote:I think the only player whose contract is up at the end of this season is Freddie.

Quite a few at the end of next season including Batty, Harinath, Pillans and Dunn. Probably a few others as well but not sure.

...

Forgot Ravi Rampaul last night. Think his contract is also up at the end of this season.

guildfordbat wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:I think the only player whose contract is up at the end of this season is Freddie.

Quite a few at the end of next season including Batty, Harinath, Pillans and Dunn. Probably a few others as well but not sure.

...  

Forgot Ravi Rampaul last night. Think his contract is also up at the end of this season.

The kitchen staff will be hoping it's not renewed!

At least the declaration had no part in this defeat, 88 all out and the hundred from croft was the decider

Surrey disappointed to have lost wickets "in clumps". Nearly right. Should have said "clump". A clump of 10 wickets! Ruinous decision making in this match.

To be fair, over the season while imo we have deserved to have avoided relegation with a bit to spare - we haven't really been good enough to get second when so rarely have we won, or got even close to winning matches.

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:Surrey disappointed to have lost wickets "in clumps".  Nearly right. Should have said "clump".  A clump of 10 wickets!  Ruinous decision making in this match.  

To be fair, over the season while imo we have deserved to have avoided relegation with a bit to spare - we haven't really been good enough to get second when so rarely have we won, or got even close to winning matches.  

Totally agree in all respects, Corporal.

Help yourself to an early morning snifter from the bar and add it to my tab.

guildfordbat wrote:

Help yourself to an early morning snifter from the bar and add it to my tab.

Stock take begins tomorrow - this would of course be a lot easier if there's no stock left.   So - help yourself today!

Clearly not Surrey's finest match on or off the field but a top half finish in the Championship, a Lords final and a T20 quarter final is not too bad in a season of such off field upheaval. A lot of thinking to do for the management regarding next season though.

Meanwhile I hope everyone enjoys the winter's International cricket and returns fit, healthy and raring to go in the spring when proper cricket starts again.

Voice of the Beehive - I accept what you say although my aims are beyond ''not too bad'' and don't believe that is being too greedy. Therefore, for me, a disappointing season and the loss from now of Sangakkara does not make me optimistic for next year.

You appear to offer the ''off field upheaval'' as a mitigating factor for us not doing better. I can't properly comment from this distance but such upheaval (by which I assume we're both talking about the sudden departures) raises questions in my mind as to the management.

Anyway, to you and all - winter well.

Very worried for next season. Our batting kept us up this year, and we lose Sanga and potentially Stoneman for most of the season if he does well in Aus. Who will make the 2000+ runs lost from those two? Meanwhile our bowling is still not good enough (as pointed out for several years now) with nobody getting over 30 wickets in the championship. Obviously the loss of Footitt was unfortunate (and Ansari) but the Currans haven't kicked on this year and taken as many wickets as hoped, Dernbach is generally hopeless and Meaker is obviously not trusted by Batty, hence his reluctance to bowl him. We really need a good overseas bowler, but also a batsman. We'll do well to stay up next year.

Batting averages for the season:

Sangakkara 1491 @ 106
Stoneman 1156 @ 60
Burns 1041 @ 49
Roy 257 @ 42
Foakes 680 @ 42
Finch 39 @ 39
Pope 226 @ 37
Sibley 330 @ 33
Patel 170 @ 28
Tom Curran 247 @ 27
Sam Curran 423 @ 26
Borthwick 446 @ 24
Clarke 157 @ 22
Batty 175 @ 17
Meaker 174 @ 17

Worrying that the top two batters may be away next season, but Roy and Stoneman are unlikely to be away on England duty at the same time so we should have at least one of them for most games.

Sam Curran's batting hasn't come on as hoped - I wouldn't be super excited about him batting at seven again next season.

The lower order have generally made runs, we'll need that to continue next season given the loss of Sangakkara.

I may be the only one who will miss Sibley, but I wish he was still around. He's able to fit in anywhere in the order and just needs to improve his strike rotation against spin to become a very good player.

A big question for next year will be Borthwick - if he can regain his form—get his average to around 40—I'd be confident in our top order.

Bowling averages:

Clarke 22 @ 19
Footit 23 @ 29
Batty 25 @ 34
Tom Curran 24 @ 34
van den Bergh 4 @ 36
Meaker 21 @ 41
Dernbach 10 @ 43
Virdi 6 @ 45
Sam Curran 25 @ 47
Sibley 1 @ 50
Patel 2 @ 64
Rampaul 3 @ 64
Borthwick 4 @ 86
McKerr 1 @ 102

Worrying that Footit and Clarke—who each only played half a season for us—are 2 and 3 behind our leading wicket takers.

As Kingdave says, Meaker needs a captain who will trust him. His average was around 35 for most of the season but fell apart as Batty bowled him less and less in the last few games.

Sam Curran again the big disappointment, he's taken the new ball all season which has allowed the opposition openers to get off to a decent start.

We've been really hurt by Tom Curran's availability issues this year. They're likely to continue next year so I think an overseas bowler is vital.

Batty's quietly had a better season than I'd thought.

Borthwick isn't a viable second spin option.

Looks like a tough season coming up - even if we get a stellar overseas signing. Batting wise we'll have to hope that Borthwick regains his form - he really could/should be averaging 40+ Vital again that Rory Burns again gets his 1000 runs and an average at or close to 50. Pope looks promising and maybe there's a fair chance he could get in a whole season as frontline batsman in Div 1 with an average of, say, 35+. Batting line up may turn out just about OK if we get good availability of Foakes and Roy and at least some Stoneman. But we'll probably be doing quite well to be about an average batting side in Div 1 next season.

Bowling - whatever happened to Footitt, he's only played one match for Notts since his transfer? Unless we plug in a few optimistic assumptions the situation is potentially dire on the pacer/seamer front for the cc. We could be heavily dependent on the somewhat ageing Rikki Clarke (tho he has done every bit as well as we could realistically have hoped for.) I would be reasonably optimistic that Tom Curran might pick up a few more cc wickets next season. Will Sam Curran regain some of his zip - or maybe McKerr might come through. Looks like Dernbach should only be in the cc team if we are desperate! And the on/off in/out saga of Meaker continues.

On the spinning front maybe Virdi or Freddie can get some regular first team games and kick on a bit.
Difficult to see Borthwick playing a major role in the cc bowling attack.

never really got to terms with the loss of son of Boris

guildfordbat wrote:Voice of the Beehive - I accept what you say although my aims are beyond ''not too bad'' and don't believe that is being too greedy. Therefore, for me, a disappointing season and the loss from now of Sangakkara does not make me optimistic for next year.

You appear to offer the ''off field upheaval'' as a mitigating factor for us not doing better. I can't properly comment from this distance but such upheaval (by which I assume we're both talking about the sudden departures) raises questions in my mind as to the management.

Anyway, to you and all - winter well.

It's true that the season has been a bit underwhelming and I did have very high hopes of a title challenge and a good crack at the T20 at the start of the season. Didn't fancy us in the 50 over stuff much.

I don't really want to be an apologist for the management but the sudden departure of Zafar I think seriously affected our plans in all formats not least because it left us without a genuine all rounder and even more vulnerable to collapse. Also effectively took out the option of preparing a spinner's wicket at The Oval for our dual spin attack to exploit. Roy's loss of form and availability was a huge blow too as was Borthwick effectively not turning up. Given these issues and unexpected unavailability of Stoneman and Tom Curran for some matches I think it was a difficult season for Surrey. Far too much is being asked/expected of Sam Curran with both bat and ball by the way.

Others have already very accurately set out the shortcomings of the side and the very real concerns for next season. Pretty sad that Batty and Clarke were the main hope of taking wickets by the end of the season. It is disappointing that we do feel further away from a title challenge than I felt we were six months ago but it's up to the management to address that now, in particular finding someone that can help us take twenty wickets in matches and knock over a tail (excluding Surrey often not as easy as it once was).