Surrey vs Hampshire LV=County Championship

Surrey have named a 12 man squad for the LV=County Championship game against Hampshire starting today at the Kia Oval.
Tillakaratne Dilshan is set to make his Championship debut , Stuart Meaker is included having recovered from the side strain that has kept him out of action in recent weeks and Kevin O’Brien comes into a Championship squad for the first time this season.  
Jade Dernbach is unavailable due the hamstring strain he picked up against Leicestershire. Tom Curran is also unavailable due to a recurrence of a calf strain in the T20 victory against Hampshire last night and Chris Tremlett is rested.
The Surrey squad for the LV=County Championship game against Hampshire at the Kia Oval on Saturday 28th June, Sunday 29th June, Monday 30th June and Tuesday 1st July:
Gary Wilson (capt)
Zafar Ansari
Gareth Batty
Rory Burns
Steven Davies
Tillakaratne Dilshan
Matthew Dunn
Tim Linley
Stuart Meaker
Kevin O’Brien
Jason Roy
Vikram Solanki

Morning Jimbob, lets hope its a closer game than last night     

jimbohammers wrote:Morning Jimbob, lets hope its a closer game than last night     

  

surrey have won the toss and will bat
meaker misses out   

17 year old spinner Brad Taylor plays. Interesting....

Carberry, Adams, Smith, Vince, Wheater, Ervine, Taylor, Coles, Abbott, Briggs, Tomlinson

Play due to start at 2:10 and 80 overs now scheduled for the day - hope the flood lights work!

O'Brien's inclusion strengthens the batting although I'm not sure about him being the third seamer which appears is going to be the case here.

son of boris goes cheaply   

Finally play is due to resume at 6:10. 22 overs left today. With Surrey now on 4/1, that's going to be particularly tricky. If all 22 are bowled, I would settle now for losing only 1 more wicket before stumps.

O me of little faith. Great effort by Burns and Solanki to get us to 68/1 at stumps.

A shame that so much of today was lost to the weather but we are where we are. Can't get ahead of ourselves, just need to bat on tomorrow and get a total on the board.

Did well to lose only 1 wicket in curtailed day's play. Somewhat puzzled by omission of Meaker, given that he was fit enough to be in the squad.  Since coming into the side Solanki's made important contributions.

Corporal - I wasn't too surprised by Meaker's omission. Unless we go with a seam heavy attack, he probably loses out to Dunn who is similar (advantages and disadvantages) and this season's form guy with approaching 30 wickets. Also, Batty's continuing failures with the bat have created a desire to have someone before him in the order at 8 which has led to O'Brien's selection.

Not totally happy with that but I think it's the rationale.

Just a little stat relating to the match - apart from matches for Sri Lanka and it's representative elevens this is only the third first class match Dilshan has played since 2008.

I couldn't be there today but Surrey supporters have been so lucky to have seen the likes of Ponting, Smith, Amla and Dilshan playing for our team at The Oval in the last two years.

Brad Taylor gets the wicket of Davies with the first ball after lunch   

Hi Jimbo and distinguished others - at the ground. Taylor's bowled well and deserved his wicket albeit with probably his worst ball.

Bit of rain in the air - hope it holds off. Report tonight.

Thought I'd bring this over from the T20 thread

guildfordbat

Olly wrote:Do I smell the petrol of a Roy for England bandwagon starting up?! 

[size=30]Olly - hope you're following today's scorecard at the Oval![/size]

Appears we have a few passengers aboard the bandwagon Guildford!

Seems to be in a rich vein of form?

100 for roy           

150 partnership     

382 for 5 at stumps     fair to say the hampshire bowlers must be getting sick of roy   

Hard to believe but could Surrey be turning into a good team at both forms of the game? A good mix at the moment of a wise investment in the overseas player who's less fragile than a Saffer, good performances from several senior players, and two home-grown youngsters - Zafer and Jason R - showing the kind of promise which leads to being mentioned in terms of international recognition.

Another good day for Surrey......I could get used to this! unless Simon has put the jinx on us now!
Looks like you saw another sizzling performance from Jase the ace today guildford..............and let's not forget the innings of our ever dependable skipper 'Harold'

Apart from the showers and two umpires who seemed overly keen to halt play, things went very much Surrey's way today. A deserved reward for their positive approach.

Not only did we bat with intent but also intelligence. Star of the show was undoubtedly Roy but there were several very good supporting acts. All looked to get on with it and did but never in a crazy and suicidal manner.

When on form as he certainly is currently, Roy is such a powerful and clean hitter. One straight drive off Taylor almost ran out Dilshan as the ball glanced the young bowler at exocet speed and demolished the stumps at the non-striker's end. With no third umpire to call on, Dilshan got the benefit of the doubt.

A word of praise here for 17 year old off spinner Taylor playing in only his second CC match. He was prepared to give the ball some flight and in his early overs was economic, even keeping Dilshan quiet for a while after he had set off like a train trying to make up time. He merited his wicket - Davies first ball after lunch - even though it came from a poor shot from an unusually poor ball wide of leg stump. Taylor's figures only suffered later in the day after Roy had had a good look at him and then got after him; there again, Taylor was in good company as 'Frankie' (that's for Goochie!) Abbot suffered the same fate.

Excellent knock as well from Wilson and a very valuable partnership with Roy. The usual elegance from Solanki and another creditable innings although it once more left me (and him from his reaction to his dismissal) wanting more. Burns had sensibly supported Solanki earlier until impatience got the better of him and he tried to play a second successive ball from Briggs to the leg side boundary only to miss what was a straight one and fall lbw.

For Jimbo, I'll add that Hants stuck at it with the ball and in the field (good stops from Carbs whilst Vince regularly threw himself around); a Leics or Derbys against Roy today would have wilted. However, for table toppers, some of the Hants attack did seem a bit workmanlike. I exclude here the promise of Taylor and the undoubted class of Abbot. Credit as well to Briggs for his 3 wickets but I don't see him being England's next spinner - he pretty much kept the ball low and pushed it through. Ervine was generally tidy but not particularly threatening; similar for Tomlinson with his bizarre snake like run up - the left handhander began on the off side, ran between the umpire (standing back) and the stumps and ended up bowling round the wicket. 'Ordinary' would be the kindest description of Coles' bowling on this showing. Maybe it was just one of those days.

What next? Get to 400 for a 5th batting point, motor on quickly to about 450 and declare, bowl 'em out cheaply, enforce the follow on, bowl 'em out cheaply again, continue dreaming!!

I think we're witnessing something special with Jason Roy. He's really having a superb season and the kind of one we all have wanted him to have for a few years. I do think the Tom Maynard tragedy rocked him badly and he was on the cusp of 'breaking through' before then and it's not until now he's got his head right and been given the right direction and a role in the side. Brilliant stuff. Slight sidenote but I saw his highlights from Friday's knock, some of those shots were incredible!

Excellent cricket from Surrey at the moment.  A number of players all seem to have discovered or rediscovered at the same time the way to build a significant innings and big partnerships.  Harold must be enjoying captaining at the moment.

Particular pleasure that Roy    has really found outstanding and consistent form with Surrey - and that it did not take a move to Sussex to achieve that.  

Thanks for the update Guildford. Good to hear Taylor impressed, he played in a one day game last year (on sky!) aged 16 and done really well. Hasn't really had a look in since then. Tbh we normally have Dawson, who bowls useful off spin.

I don't want to be too harsh on the bowling as they have all done well this year, especially Abbott. Ill let them off that it was just 'a bad day at the office'.

Fair play to Roy for continuing his form, another fine knock. Will be interesting to see when Surrey declare? Especially with a lot of overs lost.

Cheers, Jimbo. My guess is that we'll look to add another 60 or 70 within 10 overs this morning to get up to around 450 and then declare.

Roy    out first ball this morning.  Wilson & O'Brien going steadily - possibly want to get past 110 overs before hitting out, to avoid giving Hants free bowling point....

O'Brien and Batty - scoring 5 runs in 4 overs.  Not sure what that is about.   Last 10 overs Surrey have scored 15/1....

Still waiting for O'Brien to go hell for leather. We're using up too much time at the moment. Every over we face now is one less we'll have to get 20 wickets.

looks like we are happy with a draw   

o'brien gone   

Heard a rumour Wilson rang Alistair Cook for tactical advice this morning.

Well, we've got 450 up but it took twice as long as I was hoping for this morning. Declaration at 12:30? Give 'em 20 minutes before lunch ....

Not quite sure what's gone at the Oval in the morning session - once Harold was out (415-7) and didn't get his century, surely it was time for the declaration?! Unless Hants collude, and I can't see why they would now, this is going to meander into a fairly tame draw

Agree with thegooch. The only other justifiable option was to hit out for a few overs and try to reach around 450 quickly and declare. Batting on at pretty much normal Championship pace made no sense to me.

The proof of the pudding will be in the final result though I suppose.

50/1 after 14 overs. Dunn bowling economically by the looks of it. Any idea why Linley only bowled 2 overs?

Looks like a draw as Hants get past 80 with only 1 down.

134 - 1 Looks even more like a draw.  Ansari, in his 20th over, has bowled more than Nora.

Bonus points an important issue now.

Finally, after a partnership spanning 50 overs, Adams falls LBW to the economical Batty.

Carrotdude wrote:50/1 after 14 overs. Dunn bowling economically by the looks of it. Any idea why Linley only bowled 2 overs?

Viscount still only bowled 6 overs when Clive has bowled 16 and all other bowling done by the spinners.  I assume that Viscount must be injured.

The draw looks nailed on from here. A shame but not too distressed. It was always going to be very difficult to get 20 Hants wickets in less than two days. We've done well to more than hold our own against the tabletoppers and have shown clear signs of improvement in recent weeks.

I wouldn't say it has materially affected the result but the decision to include O'Brien now looks more questionable. That's said with some but not total hindsight. I just about understood why he appeared to have been included (as I posted to the Corporal) but wasn't fully convinced. Far less so now he hasn't yet bowled at all and spent the morning on a batting go slow when the situation cried out for him to try for 40 runs off 30 balls which I thought would have been his mug of tea.

Not playing meaker was daft to say the least yes not as economical as the viscount but more likely to get wkts

To be fair, the weather has ruined this game. If it was the beginning of day 3 we'd still be hopeful of a result. BUT, it does seem rather strange picking a batsman to come in at number 8, and stranger still when he undid all the good work of Roy forcing the pace earlier.
I don't see why Tremlett played a T20 in preference to a CC match - unless he was so 'tired' that he was never going to last 4 days anyway. More puzzling then that Meaker was then included in the squad and didn't play!? Roy could also have filled in with a bit of medium pace, and with the 2 (3 with Dilshan?) spinners we could have had quite a potent looking attack.
Anyway, I'm staying positive, let's get a full quota of bonus points from this match, then onwards and upwards!

2nd bowling point achieved 10 overs left to get the 3rd

oh well have to settle for 7 bonus points
time for third degree to turn his arm   

O'Brien finally on for 3 overs of rubbish   

60 for the last wkt   

son of boris getting a rest for the 2nd innings   

Great effort by Ervine, Abbott, Briggs + Tomlinson.   

12 points for the rey