SURREY VS LANCASHIRE SPECSAVERS COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP

Surrey have named a thirteen-man squad for this weekend’s Specsavers County Championship match with Lancashire at Emirates Old Trafford.
The eleven players that beat Hampshire at the Kia Oval in the first match of the season retain their places in the squad and are joined by Ryan Patel and Stuart Meaker.
There is no update on the injury to Gareth Batty
FULL SQUAD IS AS FOLLOWS:
Rory Burns (captain)
Mark Stoneman
Scott Borthwick
Dean Elgar
Ollie Pope
Ben Foakes
Sam Curran
Rikki Clarke
Jade Dernbach
Matthew Dunn
Amar Virdi
Ryan Patel
Stuart Meaker
Unchanged eleven for me if its not broke don't try and fix it
Over to you chaps

Cheers, JimBob.

I'll say same again as well. If anyone does miss out, Dunn has to be favourite with Meaker most likely to step in. A real left-field choice would be to replace Virdi with Patel - highly unlikely but just feasible if the weather is very bad, time is lost and it's felt we don't need a frontline spinner when the eleven is finally chosen.

Stream should be available again for watching and listening.

I agree almost certainly Patel and very likely Meaker will miss out. Forecast not very good for tomorrow - but it could be there are odd bits of play in between bad light and/or drizzle. Meaker at least got in a bit of bowling practice in the curious Hants/Surrey vs Sussex/Essex 2nd II match.

Day 1 abandoned with no play. Disappointing but not unexpected.

According to Surrey twitter, it was chilly but dry and bright at Old Trafford an hour ago. If it stays like that, might be worth having a toss with the intention of batting first.

No fun fielding in the cold and harder to take catches. If it's bright, the ball might not swing.

Sounds like a day to think about it ... and then bat!

Rikki Clarke is ill, so interestingly Patel steps in for him. Guess he had too really, can’t have Meaker coming in at 8

Surrey bowl first

I actually would have had Meaker in at 8. Not a fan of picking bowlers based on their batting, 8-11 should be bowling spots for me, with any runs just a bonus (though in this case you could say we're protecting Sam from having to bat at seven, which would be fair.)

Lancs 233-6

Half centuries for Chanderpaul and Croft

3 wickets for Dernbach

Manchester somehow avoids the bad weather allowing a full day's play.

Surrey elected to bowl and will be disappointed that Lancs finished up 352/8 from 104 overs. Especially disappointing given the hosts were 23/3. Half-centuries from Chanderpaul, Clarke and Croft initially rescuing Lancs and then putting them on top - the first two there have previous form against us.

3 wickets each for Dernbach and Virdi with a couple for Sam Curran. A nil return for Dunn but at least he got through 22 overs to suggest he's fitter than at any time in the last two years. Zilch for Patel as well who came in for man-flu victim Clarke.

I only saw a bit on the stream but liked the look of Virdi. Big wickets as well for him. Fine effort for a young spinner on what was effectively the first day.

With Monday likely to be a wash out, all about bonus points tomorrow.

Disappointing latter part of the day. But not a great surprise given our bowling attack. (I've never seen Patel bowl, but I rather doubt that he is likely to become a genuine all rounder.) Sounds as though Dernbach put in a good stint earlier in the day. Encouraging from Virdi again, judging by the stats.

As regulars will know, I'm not keen on overnight declarations and instead prefer to surprise the opposition openers with the decision when they are in the field. However, in the current state of this game, I would seriously consider it.

Lancs have nothing to gain in terms of bonus points (they need 48 more runs off 6 overs with 2 wickets left for a fifth batting point = no chance!). Continuing their innings gives us a decent chance of knocking off another wicket in the opening 6 overs for a third bowling point - why give us that opportunity?

If Lancs declare now, we still have to get 200 to avoid a follow on and potential embarrassment - not likely given the time already lost (day one was a wash out) and tomorrow's forecast is grim but the hosts can afford to set the running.

Surrey twitter referred about an hour ago to it being cold but dry at the ground so we should be getting play.

really missed Clarke

Well, I was right about Lancs declaring ... I just hadn't seen them putting on 80 odd in about an hour before doing so!

Stoneman's poor form continues. I'll regard that as just a blip for now but we can't afford for it to last long.

I heard Churchy mention that the forecast for tomorrow has improved. Corporal - what do you say, please?

50 for borthwick

jimbobgooner wrote:50 for borthwick

Important for us that Borthwick has a decent season. Encouraging signs ....

foakes out to a shocker from the umpire

batting patel after baby face is a joke

follow on incoming
rain dance needed

231 - 9 at the close. Crumbled badly late on in the day. Forecast has changed - so that rain is more confined to eastern side of the country. It now looks dry for 3 out of 4 Div 1 matches. The match at Southampton may have some rain - but it's very much on the western edge of the predicted rainfall so it could go either way.

jimbobgooner wrote:batting patel after baby face is a joke

Jimbo - Patel just seemed to be plonked into the order in Clarke's usual place without much thought. Churchy referred to our overall performance today as ''careless'' - I thought that was right and your post is a good example.

Credit to Patel for seeing out 30 balls tonight. Even if Virdi goes immediately in the morning, we now have 3 overs less to survive tomorrow. Hopefully, greater determination plus a bit of the wet stuff will get us a draw. Even so, there'll be little to celebrate. A poor performance so far.

Agree Patel should have batted above Curran.  Patel is finding his way at first team level and seems, by nature to be a bit of a grafter. With a tail as flimsy as our we really need to be batting Patel at a position where he at least has a chance to build an innings.

Must admit too that I get queasy about the over optimistic reports by Surrey ccc at the end of play on how the team's doing - in this instance on the first day's play. We've had this in the past but I thought they had rather got over this tendency. Don't know whether the players read it, but if they do it's not good psychology.

Good first session of the day for Surrey that

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Good first session of the day for Surrey that

Agreed. We're a bit fortunate though that extra overs aren't added on the last day to make up for those lost earlier in the match.

4 wickets down, moribund scoring rate...the way our tail bats, I am distinctly pesimestic about our chances of scraping a draw...LANs thoroughly deserve to win...the Corporal may well have to open the bar tonight but the patronage will be coming from Surrey fans drowning their sorrows!

what was borthwick doing

chichestersurreyfan wrote:4 wickets down, moribund scoring rate...the way our tail bats, I am distinctly pesimestic about our chances of scraping a draw...LANs thoroughly deserve to win...the Corporal may well have to open the bar tonight but the patronage will be coming from Surrey fans drowning their sorrows!

Hi Chichester - hope all is well. I'm a bit more optimistic than you and think we'll scrape a draw (apologies if that turns out to be a jinx!). However, I agree with your general tone that it's been a poor showing. Especially disappointing after we did so well against Hants.

About 32 overs left for our last 6 wickets to see out ....

pope nearly out taking a quick single

pope dropped by the sub keeper a dolly
slashing at a wide one as well absolute stupidity

guildfordbat wrote:

chichestersurreyfan wrote:4 wickets down, moribund scoring rate...the way our tail bats, I am distinctly pesimestic about our chances of scraping a draw...LANs thoroughly deserve to win...the Corporal may well have to open the bar tonight but the patronage will be coming from Surrey fans drowning their sorrows!

Hi Chichester - hope all is well. I'm a bit more optimistic than you and think we'll scrape a draw (apologies if that turns out to be a jinx!). However, I agree with your general tone that it's been a poor showing. Especially disappointing after we did so well against Hants.

About 32 overs left for our last 6 wickets to see out ....

Hi Guildfordbat ,

Many thanks for your message....your optimism is looking more justified than my pessimism...I blame it on the weather, truly awful today..about 6c here all day and cricket feels like the last thing one’s mind...today’s cricket sounds like it can be summed up in one word..’attritional’

jimbobgooner wrote:pope dropped by the sub keeper a dolly
slashing at a wide one as well absolute stupidity

Thanks for your post there, JimBob. Just tracked this down on the stream - Hameed was dashing from silly mid off to congratulate bowler Onions whilst Vilas was spilling it!

I mentioned during the Hants game that Pope does come across to me as a one day player. That said, he's made the most of his luck so far today and is still there ....

Foakes gone...not counting any chickens!

Pope gone...certainly not counting chickens now!!!!!

Both Foakes and Pope now gone in quick succession - just as it looked as tho they had done all the hard work. Curran and Patel now in

4 overs to survive

3 overs

2 overs

1 over left

match drawn

Patel looked steady and sensible. It was important he did as we had three number 11s waiting to come in after him.

Fair play that we didn't crumble today and ground it out. However, we fell away badly from having Lancs at 23/3 and our being 100/1 first dig.

Never in doubt fellas

Desperately need our front line bowlers back

Bit of fight shown by Surrey on the last day. Only saw short period of the live feed - at least Curran and Patel batted sensibly at the end. Overall, a very ordinary performance in this match, with our bowling lacking quality.