surrey vs hampshire lv county championship

Surrey have named a twelve man squad for their LV=County Championship game against Hampshire at the Ageas Bowl starting on Sunday
Arun Harinath is included in a Championship squad for the first time this season having been in excellent form with the bat for the 2nd XI. Chris Tremlett has not been considered for selection due to a back complaint.
The Surrey squad to play Hampshire at the The Ageas Bowl on Sunday April 27th, Monday April 28th, Tuesday April 29th and Wednesday April 30th:
Graeme Smith (Capt)
Zafar Ansari
Rory Burns
Tom Curran
Steven Davies
Jade Dernbach
Matthew Dunn
Arun Harinath
Jason Roy
Stuart Meaker
Dominic Sibley
Gary Wilson
over to jimbo for the hampshire team news   

Evening Jimbob, just back from watching the hammers    

Our squad is:

Will Smith
Jimmy Adams
Joe Gatting
Sean Ervine
Liam Dawson
James Vince
Michael Carberry
Michael Bates
Danny Briggs
James Tomlinson
Matt Coles
David Balcombe
Kyle Abbott

Most likely to be unchanged from the last game, but I would like to see Balcombe or Briggs in for Gatting as I think our bowling is a little light.

jimbohammers wrote:Evening Jimbob, just back from watching the hammers   

 A painful end to the season.     

A painful season Corp

He's got to be sacked. Never seen a manager so hated

Hey look you guys have got it alright!

We'll be lucky to not finish bottom!

jimbohammers wrote:A painful season Corp

He's got to be sacked. Never seen a manager so hated

completley agree

Olly wrote:Hey look you guys have got it alright!

We'll be lucky to not finish bottom!

 Whatever the problem at Norwich, to sack manager so late in the season was asking for trouble. Agree it's not looking at all good now.

Surrey leave out Harinath and Hants omit Briggs and Balcombe.  Like all other sides winning the toss today Surrey have chosen to field.

CF wrote:

jimbohammers wrote:A painful season Corp

He's got to be sacked. Never seen a manager so hated

completley agree

and an arrogance that he has no right to have! Allardyce out!

Anyway, the cricket hasn't cheered me up either. After putting them in, we've allowed them to get off to a tremendous start, and with our batting line up, I fear the worst already!

Just got in from work and very happy with the score. Good aggressive batting considering conditions.

James Vince, class act!

100 off 102 balls.

Well played Vince.  Hants look well on top.

For all the talk of promotion for Surrey this season we are playing a very inexperienced and unproven bowling attack (plus Dernbach!?). Clearly a rebuilding phase - giving Dunn and Curran a reasonable run at showing whether they have the potential to become first class cricketers, as well as Ansari - can he sensibly hold down the role of spinner / all rounder in matches where pitch not expected to take much spin.

Hants 289/3 as play is washed out for the rest of the day.

As the Corporal suggests above, our hosts are well on top. Great credit to Vince, undefeated on 118 at almost a run a ball. He's really moved the game along to give his side a good chance of getting full batting points and an outside chance of victory.

If the weather permits sufficient remaining time, I would suspect Hants will be hoping to declare a little north of 400, bowl us out fairly cheaply, enforce the follow on and then do the same again. Whilst the odds must strongly be on a draw, if there is going to be a winner ... well, it surely ain't going to be us!

From what I've seen of our bowling at the Oval this season, we generally seem steady but lack any great penetration or 'wow' factor. That's especially disappointing as we're now bowling at Division Two batsmen; that's not a particular dig at your batsmen, Jimbo - whilst some Div Two batsmen (eg Vince) could hold their own anywhere, the standard is on the whole naturally enough lower.

It's probably to be expected that someone youngish and pretty inexperienced like Dunn will blow hot and cold this season (and he's definitely been on the chilly side so far in this match). However, the more experienced bowlers need to stand up and deliver consistently. I had hoped that Meaker would noticeably step up to be the leader of the pack ... still waiting for that. I also hope that Linley is still in the thoughts of the new regime - would have thought this rather typical April weather would have suited him yesterday and today.

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:

Olly wrote:Hey look you guys have got it alright!

We'll be lucky to not finish bottom!

 Whatever the problem at Norwich, to sack manager so late in the season was asking for trouble. Agree it's not looking at all good now.

It was the last throw of the dice Corporal, should've happened months earlier

Guildford   

Vince is a top player and I think many forget he is only 23 years old! Having been in the Hampshire team for a few years already!

No play on day 3 which is a shame as there is some sun out and the rain has stopped many times throughout the day

jimbohammers wrote:Guildford   



No play on day 3 :(which is a shame as there is some sun out and the rain has stopped many times throughout the day

The problem with starting the season earlier and earlier every year!

This is getting ridiculous now. Play to start at 11.30 and the grass is still a bit wet. There was barely any rain last night and the sun has been out for 2 hours. The players have been out there playing football, bowling, nets etc... If they are serious about making this a test match ground they have got to do something.

Jimbo - I agree it's very annoying. Do you think there is something wrong with the ground or are the umpires being overly fussy?

A bit of both tbh Guildford. Jimmy Adams didn't seem too happy yesterday.

https://twitter.com/hantscricket/status/461144813937508354/photo/1

It was a strange decision to call the game to a close so early yesterday as there was quite a bit of sun after that!

Cheers, Jimbo.

I know from experience how maddening it is to see cricketers playing football on the outfield when the umpires have ruled that cricket is not playable. If I had wanted to watch football, I would obviously have gone to Woking FC!   

More seriously, if it's really potentially dangerous in parts, then fair enough. However, the conditions required by the umpires for CC cricket seem higher than for t20 - that's not right.

I think the rules need to be changed a bit. So many times players go off when its perfectly suitable to play. Some common-sense needed!

Vince goes 159 off 186 balls. Top knock   

Vince     Finally Surrey making a few inroads and scraping a second bowling bonus point. Not quite the drama compared to match at Lords which sounds like great advert for county cricket.

Yes, top knock by Vince. Putting Hants in with a very good chance of max batting points and certainly a 'winning' draw.

Listening to a bit of radio commentary, sounds like Davies has had a poor time behind the stumps.

54-2 after twenty something overs. Yet again, we can neither avoid losing wickets nor score quickly. Added to another poor bowling display (why isn't Linley playing?) this looks like another forgettable summer for Surrey fans! I'd like to know why none of the obvious problems at the club were addressed during the close season.

kingdaveeagle wrote:54-2 after twenty something overs. Yet again, we can neither avoid losing wickets nor score quickly. Added to another poor bowling display (why isn't Linley playing?) this looks like another forgettable summer for Surrey fans! I'd like to know why none of the obvious problems at the club were addressed during the close season.

KingDave - you, me and many other Surrey supporters failed to realise that this match ended with ''Honours Even At Ageas Bowl''. At least that's what the heading on the Surrey website tells us!   And there was me believing that Hants had 5 bonus points to our 2.

In a post match interview on the same website, Smith had a pop at Hants and referred to being 'disappointed' that they wouldn't agree to setting us a run chase. I'm not having that. We won the toss, put them in in difficult conditions and then bowled like muppets. It was down to us to make the running (as it was at the Oval against Essex) and again we failed miserably to do so. If Hants wanted to safeguard their points advantage against promotion rivals (at least on paper) and not gamble anything today, they were perfectly entitled to take that approach.

If this is a rant, it's not against the likes of Sibley, Curran and Dunn but the more experienced international players who should be doing a lot more for the youngsters - and us!

I'll post later on the general Surrey thread why Smith hasn't applied for Irish citizenship. That does nothing to warm me to him.

Agreed Guildford, thought they were some strange comments. Hampshire were well in control after batting well first up, so not sure why they should sort of 'throw that away'.

Hampshire's Chris Wood:

''They wanted to set up a game on Wednesday. They were trying to get a target of 250 off 70 overs out of us, which we thought was a bit unreasonable. It’s a shame with the weather but we know that can happen early season.''

(no wonder why we didn't accept that! haha)

Jimbo - Wood is spot on and fairly diplomatic at the same time. It was greedy and stupid of Surrey to come up with a target like that. We clearly didn't hold the cards and shouldn't have acted as if we did.

In any case, the side batting last in such a situation often is in the better position by being able to go for the runs at outset and then having the option to try and shut up shop if a few wickets do fall. There was no reason for Hants to concede the initiative and you were right not to do so.