SURREY VS ESSEX EAGLES/MIDDLESEX NATWEST T20

Surrey have named a 16 man squad    for tonight’s NatWest T20 Blast clash with Essex at the Kia Oval – including Kevin Pietersen for the first time this season.
Pietersen is the only addition to the squad that narrowly lost to Kent    ( for Guildford) and Middlesex at the end of last week
Full Surrey Squad
Gareth Batty (captain)
Scott Borthwick
Rory Burns
Sam Curran
Tom Curran
Jade Dernbach
Aaron Finch
Ben Foakes (wk)
Stuart Meaker
Kevin Pietersen
Ollie Pope
Jason Roy
Ravi Rampaul
Kumar Sangakkara
Dom Sibley
Mark Stoneman
Sadly his holiness will have to drop out for kp and meaks must be due a game.
so Borthwick,Burns,pope,Ravioli and Stoneman for me
Over to you chaps

Cheers, JimBob.

Yeah, don't think Surrey have ever named a 16 man squad before!

Btw, think you were sold a pup by the Surrey website referring to us having ''narrowly lost to Kent''.  Took 'em to the last over to get the total but they did so with 8 wickets left. That's more a tonking than a narrow loss.

I go along with you on the 5 to miss out. Meaks to get a game with Ravioli left in the canteen for third helpings. The Pope could just edge Sibley out (leaving Finch or Pietersen as a possible sixth bowler) but I doubt it. Olly's mate Nick Hoult was tweeting that Stoneman is only practising against a red ball so will be very surprised if he plays. Burns some way behind in this pecking order whilst Borthwick must have it in his contract to be named in every squad.

Bit of rain in the air my way but hopefully it'll be ok tonight.

Mr Sangakkara warming up with the keeper gloves on according to Church...interesting...

Yep, Foakes left out for Pietersen. Meaker in for Rampaul as expected.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Mr Sangakkara warming up with the keeper gloves on according to Church...interesting...

Just seen the team on Surrey twitter. Had assumed that Pope was keeping. Interesting as you say, Olly.

Team otherwise as we thought with Meaks replacing Ravioli.

JimBob - you there, mate?

KP 50

I believe that was Pietersen's first t20 50 for Surrey.

Sadly, he fell soon after and we're now 7 down after 17.5 overs and haven't even got 140 on the board.

Church was talking at the start of our looking to get 230. Going to be miles short.

150/9 off our 20.

Essex's bowling well marshalled by the ever astute Tendo. Brilliant work from Amir and Walter highly effective too.

Very poor from Surrey.

Essex making heavy weather of things - 80 odd/4 off 12.

Think they've got enough batters left to get over the line but we're in with a shout which I didn't expect ....

From the halfway point, didn't see that win coming at all!

Seems that the 5 bowlers each did a job.

Maybe the pitch wasn't as good as first thought?

Surprised with that victory. Even more surprised that Ryan ten Doeschate was batting all through during latter stages and still didn't manage to steal a victory.

KP on good form tonight, even if most of the other Surrey batting stars misfired. Looks like a good all round bowling performance. Batty did very well to slow the scoring right down. Pleased to see Meaker taking a few wickets - we're going to need him to play a more central role. And Tom Curran, another tight contribution - he also took his 40th T20 wicket for Surrey.

guildfordbat wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Mr Sangakkara warming up with the keeper gloves on according to Church...interesting...

Just seen the team on Surrey twitter. Had assumed that Pope was keeping. Interesting as you say, Olly.

Team otherwise as we thought with Meaks replacing Ravioli.

JimBob - you there, mate?

yeah Guildford no one thought at the time the dropping of kp would prove so costly for Essex
they really messed up that run chase meaks and batty were outstanding in the middle overs
and for the first time this year no Mexican wave

Cheers, JimBob. Do you know if tomorrow night's game is on Sky?

guildfordbat wrote:Cheers, JimBob. Do you know if tomorrow night's game is on Sky?

yes coverage starts at 6pm

That's handy. Thanks, JimBob.

same 16 for tonight
who will come in if l be kp hasn't recovered from his calf strain?

Hi JimBob - our approach to keeping is mighty puzzling but my guess is that Foakes would come back in and take the gloves if Pietersen is still crocked.

Surrey win toss and bat team unchanged

Wicket being used for the third t20 in a week and looks like a potato patch!

we're having a shocking comp...should win this, but gearing up for a defeat

Great start for Roy and Finch, 55-0 off 5. Warne very unhappy with the Middlesex bowling.

KP better score runs now after that Finch run out!

I'm sorry but if he needs a runner after one ball he clearly shouldn't be playing

James100 wrote:Great start for Roy and Finch, 55-0 off 5. Warne very unhappy with the Middlesex bowling.

But yet again the great start ends too soon. Roy suckered by the leg spinner and falling to a boundary catch. Finch run out by Pietersen's selfishness and lack of fitness.

Pietersen asking for a runner now. No way that should be allowed - Pietersen wasn't fit when he went out and we should have to live with the consequences.

If our fitness staff passed KP fit to play tonight they should be sacked for malpractice immediately

After such a great start, this has completely stalled. At least Finn should be bowled out soon.

Santa gone too now. Unnecessary big shot in the impressive Sowter's final over.

James - yep, Sowter was impressive. Bad as we've been, we shouldn't overlook that.

Good point as well by Olly about our fitness staff - no way they should have passed Pietersen fit or even allowed him to play.

Finally Pope gets a couple of boundaries away. Hopefully a few big shots off the final three overs and we could get up to 150.

156 6 more to defend from Wednesday that innings from Sibley was painful to say the least

Very hard to make a meaningful judgement on Surrey's total but hugely disappointing after the start we got and even more unprofessional to let it slip the way we did.

I'm probably grumpy due to the Pietersen fiasco anyway but found the commentary of Flintoff and Warne (chirping continually about Key mucking up a golf putt) infantile and annoying.

Surrey's bowling has been fantastic all around today

James100 wrote:Surrey's bowling has been fantastic all around today

I hope you're not on a jinx, James.

Simpson going big and Franklin at last stepping up.

guildfordbat wrote:

James100 wrote:Surrey's bowling has been fantastic all around today

I hope you're not on a jinx, James.

Me too!

Fantastic take by Sanga preventing 4 runs off a swirling Sam Curran delivery as Flintoff rabbits on about something unrelated to the game or even cricket.

I can just about accept Flintoff, but Warne is just an awful human and commentator. It's a real shame because Key, Hussain and Ward are three of the best going in terms of insight and analysis

A great win for Surrey - magnificent in the field. My MoTM would be Meaker - a superb spell and great fielding. Whenever he plays he makes things happen!

Other than a boundary drop by substitute fielder Burns in the last over when the game was already just about over, an exceptionally good showing by Surrey in the field.

Very impressed by Sanga's keeping, unshowy but consistently reliable and encouraging.

One aspect of the game that has changed dramatically for the better in the last 20 years is the quality of fielding and, in particular, the fielding of pace bowlers. Never better shown that in the catching and diving stops of our own seamers tonight. You would never have seen such enthusiasm and quality fielding from the predecessors of Meaker, Dernbach and the Currans a couple of decades ago.

A good team bowling performance as well. All 5 played their part and Tom deserved a lot better than his return of 0/35.

Still unhappy with the Pietersen fiasco and believe we got away with one there. Feel McCullum should have objected to our having a runner and a sub fielder.

Although I didn't see it, sounds like an excellent reaction by Surrey to an at best mediocre total. All 5 bowlers did well. Earlier, a useful knock by Pope to inject some sort of momentum into the innings - and to register his highest T20 score.

Dernbach is now Surrey's joint leading wicket taker in T20 (on 82 wickets, alongside Azhar Mahmood)

What's happened to Azhar this season? Did we forget to unfreeze him from his winter hibernation?

Christ I hope I don't have nightmares after seeing warne's teeth