SURREY VS KENT LV= COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP

Surrey have named a strong 14-man squad for their LV= County Championship encounter against Kent at the Kia Oval this Sunday.
There is no place in the squad for Reece Topley or Jason Roy
Jordan Clark Matt Dunn and James taylor remain on the treatment table.
Full Squad:
Rory Burns (c)
Hashim Amla
Gus Atkinson
Sam Curran
Ben Geddes
Will Jacks
Tom Lawes
Conor McKerr
Dan Moriarty
Ryan Patel
Jamie Smith (wk)
Cameron Steel
Amar Virdi
Dan Worrall
probably Lawes, Moriarty and Virdi to miss out though I'm not happy with the Topley decision
Over to you chaps

On balance I agree with you, jimbob, on the four water carriers although I'm not sure whether to read anything into both the frontline spinners being named in the squad, certainly can't see any way they will both be playing.

I'm hoping the evil empire will allow Sammy to do his job and bowl his fair share of overs.

My guess on the 3 to miss out - Lawes, Virdi and Steel.
Fully with JimBob about Topley. Do we know if Sam is allowed to bowl and, if so, are there restrictions on how much?

Agree with everyone on Topley - would look a much stronger side with him in for McKerr or Lawes

I wonder whether Roy is white-ball only now, in previous years you'd have expected him to play CC cricket when not with England

Kent win toss and bowl
Moriarty, Steel ( washing up duty) and Virdi miss out.
Lawes rewarded after his sparking debut

Kent deciding to bowl first is an interesting decision - I'd have looked to get that Surrey bowling attack, which looks really quite weak on paper, into the field first.

oh Ryan

Burns out to a awful delivery

137 for 2 at lunch
Have to say apart from Milnes this is a bang average bowling attack.

50 for Amla

1st batting point

50 for Geddes

100 For Amla

2nd batting point

Quite a good session that one for Surrey!

Still perplexed by the toss decision from Kent

Just seen the score at tea. Good stuff, eh chaps! I reckon a few more bonus points coming your way, JimBob.

Amla going at a fair lick, above 75 per 100, unusual for him. Poor Kent attack as already said but still got to put a score on the board etc. More than useful support from the boy Geddes as well.

200 Partnership

Amla goes to Bell Drummond

3rd batting point

First championship ton for Geddes!

James100 wrote:First championship ton for Geddes!

You know my thoughts

4th batting point

50 for Smith

Geddes goes for a excellent 124

all 5 Batting points

jimbobgooner wrote:all 5 Batting points

In one day too - calls for a celebratory orange juice tonight Jimbob!

50 for Baby face

Smith out in the last over of the day

Shame to lose Smith in the final over of the day, but otherwise a pretty perfect day all round!

And, cynically, from a point of moving the game on, if SCurran and Jacks can bat for an hour tomorrow, that might do that nicely! Would like to see us throw the bat around tomorrow morning for 20/25 overs, try get the innings towards 550-600, and declare to give them an awkward 20/30 minutes before lunch.

Still fancy taking 20 wickets with this attack might be tough though. The continuing lack of either Moriarty/Virdi is bizarre to me...

I have to be honest and say that I didn’t think we’d see Amla make three figures again. Stronger attacks still to face but what a bonus if he can produce this form for the rest of the season especially if Rory gets back in the England side.

I think having an extra spinner would have been useful. I’m not sure whether Lawes is in to shorten the tail or because Sam is limited as to how many overs he can bowl or, heaven forbid, isn’t allowed to bowl at all.

Re Amla - following on from Beehive’s post, I would guess his presence and the odd word was valuable to Geddes in him getting a maiden Championship century. I remember seeing him help schoolboy Sibley to his double ton.

Re declaration - personally I like Olly’s suggestion but I suspect they’ll bat past lunch if they can. At the last forum meeting, Stewart said they batted so long and got so many against the same opposition at Beckenham in order to be able to afford to have fielders always round the bat when Jacks bowled. He thought we would have won there with that approach had the last day not been rained off. Does anyone know if the weather is likely to be a factor here?

We could lose some time to rain today Guildford - looks forecast around midday-ish

Tomorrow/Weds look ok though

Sammy finally gets his hundred

673/7 declared with 4 tons! Think the total and the timing are darned good. Same or very similar total as at Beckenham but at a quicker lick.

I’ll leave JimBob and Olly to debate the merits of Lawes’ 0 not out off 1 delivery and whether he has to pay his match fee yet.

guildfordbat wrote:673/7 declared with 4 tons! Think the total and the timing are darned good. Same or very similar total as at Beckenham but at a quicker lick.

I’ll leave JimBob and Olly to debate the merits of Lawes’ 0 not out off 1 delivery and whether he has to pay his match fee yet.

it was a quality leave

I’ve been unable to watch any of the game so far. Is this another Beckenham/Bristol bore draw or is our bowling attack good enough to take another 18 wickets quickly enough ?

Second question is - would we have had a greater/lesser/or about the same chance if we had picked Moriarty or Virdi ?

Voice of the Beehive wrote:I’ve been unable to watch any of the game so far. Is this another Beckenham/Bristol bore draw or is our bowling attack good enough to take another 18 wickets quickly enough ?

Second question is - would we have had a greater/lesser/or about the same chance if we had picked Moriarty or Virdi ?

Haven't watched enough to make comment on the pitch, albeit there does seem to be a short boundary one side which may have inflated scoring rates a tad. Re: the bowling attack good enough to take another 18 wickets, I don't think so no...and as such, I think we would've had a greater chance if Moriarty/Virdi were playing in place of Lawes. Said so at the beginning of the game, it's a bizarre continued selection, and even more with Sam Curran seemingly not on a pitch count from the ECB.

Trevor Bayliss oft did some bizarre things in the red ball arena, but I always agreed with his motto of "if you think the pitch/conditions require 5 seamers, then 4 seamers will be more than enough. If not, you need better seamers."
Lawes is distinctly the 5th seamer in this lineup, it is ludicrous he has been selected ahead of a proper frontline seamer - if this comes back to Stewart/Batty's seemingly new "they must do more than one thing" mantra for selection, then they have a disturbing lack of faith in our top 7 batsmen in this instance, if Lawes has to play at 8 because he can bat a bit better than Virdi/Moriarty.

Also unable to watch but agree with the general feeling that Virdi or Moriarty would have been a better choice than Lawes. Even without hindsight, the batting was surely strong enough to allow one of them to play instead of Lawes. We have recognised batsmen 1 to 7. Atkinson would be no fool at 8 and McKerr would be fine in a biffer’s role at 9.

Btw, Olly, don’t know if you’ve seen but Paul Edwards in his day one report for cricinfo strongly questioned Kent’s decision to put Surrey in and pointed out so did many spectators. Back in 2019 I met Edwards at the Guildford ground. A good cricket guy, astute and knowledgeable. He was very impressed with Jamie Smith who was making his Championship debut that day.

guildfordbat wrote:Also unable to watch but agree with the general feeling that Virdi or Moriarty would have been a better choice than Lawes. Even without hindsight, the batting was surely strong enough to allow one of them to play instead of Lawes. We have recognised batsmen 1 to 7. Atkinson would be no fool at 8 and McKerr would be fine in a biffer’s role at 9.

Btw, Olly, don’t know if you’ve seen but Paul Edwards in his day one report for cricinfo strongly questioned Kent’s decision to put Surrey in and pointed out so did many spectators. Back in 2019 I met Edwards at the Guildford ground. A good cricket guy, astute and knowledgeable. He was very impressed with Jamie Smith who was making his Championship debut that day.

Yes the Kent guys on comms yesterday were also questioning that decision (Was watching when Curran was near his century). One of the members at our club is also a longtime Kent member, a lot of unrest there this season from what I gather

One hour played and no wickets. Not encouraging.

Going to be an even worse day for Surrey if Hants beat Essex. Despite needing the highest innings score of the match which is never easy - eh, Olly - Hants need 180 odd more with 9 wickets left and are probably now favourites. We need Harmer to take wickets even if Jacks doesn’t!

So turns out I was wrong - no overs from Curran today, maybe he is on a pitch count?

Which makes the Lawes selection even more baffling - he's bowled 4 overs in the innings and we're 8 overs from the 2nd new ball!!

He took two wickets in his cursory over or two before lunch - of course!

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:He took two wickets in his cursory over or two before lunch - of course!

now a 3rd and to think some people didn't want him to start

All 3 bowling points in the bag

jimbobgooner wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:He took two wickets in his cursory over or two before lunch - of course!

now a 3rd and to think some people didn't want him to start  

Some of these idiots you get on this forum don't know their arse from their elbow eh Jimbob

Essex’s narrow win over Hants helps us. Duty’s post on the Championship thread provides details.

Halfway there

Not convinced this sort of wicket makes for great entertainment, nor does much to help with the problem of so many fast bowlers getting injured but hopefully Surrey's bowlers can do the job tomorrow. Personally I think the draw is just the more likely outcome especially as who knows whether Sam will be allowed to bowl. Good luck to our bowlers, they may need it.

That was a bad last session for Surrey. With total hindsight, we would have been much better off if rain had wiped it out allowing our bowlers to put their feet up and preventing Kent from putting on an undefeated 121 to edge them closer to making us bat again. Thus, our bowlers still need to take 10 wickets, have less runs to play with and probably begin pretty knackered after more than a day and a half in the field.

Kent have scored around 3 an over so far in this match. If they stay close to that rate, they should be 50 or so ahead after 90 more overs are bowled today and just about safe. That’s even assuming we can make serious inroads into their batting. If they’re ahead at all and only 3 or 4 down at 4:50, I would expect handshakes all round and a draw.

That all rather miserably said, we could of course still win. However, even if we do, I’m sure it would have helped to have Moriarty or Virdi in the side. Admittedly, I would have left Lawes out and he’s done best (so far) but a second spinner for one of the several seamers would still be my approach.

Olly sold me a pup saying the weather was going to be ok.