surrey vs somerset County Championship

First topic message reminder :

Team Director Chris Adams has named a thirteen man squad for Surrey’s opening LV=County Championship game against Somerset at the Kia Oval starting on Wednesday.
Graeme Smith will captain Surrey for the first time and new signings Gary Keedy and Vikram Solanki are named in the squad. Chris Tremlett, Jade Dernbach, Stuart Meaker and Tim Linley are all included and Zander de Bruyn comes straight into the thirteen after returning from a winter in South Africa.
there is no place in the squad for roy or lewis
Graeme Smith (capt)
Rory Burns
Arun Harinath
Vikram Solanki
Zander de Bruyn
Steven Davies
Gary Wilson
Gareth Batty
Gary Keedy
Stuart Meaker
Chris Tremlett
Tim Linley
Jade Dernbach
its good to be back

Think you got more play though, Shelsey?

After one innings admittedly, I'm fearing that my prediction that Solanki + the Brain equates to one batsmen may be right - and possibly a fairly modest batsman at that.

Burns digging in - but already looking like backs to the wall stuff. Forecast looks a bit iffy for Friday.

guildfordbat wrote:
PS King Carlos - many supporters feel your dog was unlucky not to win a contract extension!

In all seriousness I was very proud of his efforts. Considering he's approaching 54 in dog years he would've had significantly more time with his best reactions still intact than Solanki or De Bruyn do, however Adams did refer to his lack of opposable thumbs as a significant issue in gripping the bat. On the other hand his fielding was brilliant apart from that worrying tendency to return the ball to whoever threw it when backing up the stumps which led to significant over throws and frustration for the members when we repeatedly got accused of ball tampering due to bite marks....

guildfordbat wrote:Think you got more play though, Shelsey?

Perhaps. Probably a close run thing. The outfield at Lord's is terrific - dries almost instantly (though I guess The Oval have one of those new outfields too?)

Cloudy and breezy at the Oval now with a bit of blue sky. Expect to start on time. Forecast is for possible showers in the morning but better after lunch.

Awaiting the arrival of distinguished 606v2 poster and all round good egg Carrotdude ....

We can't let Surrey settle, need a wicket or 2

Just checked the score for the first time today - pleasantly surprised at 151-4! Third Degree continues to impress, and Interesting has knuckled down to give us every chance of avoiding the follow on............not out of the woods yet though!

Half century for Interesting, followed by a ton for Third Degree! Very well played Sirs!

Lunch break from painting the barracks. Excellent news. Partnership of 126* - no doubt causing Hodge to trampoline, or something, even faster....

Easy to forget that Burns hasn't yet reached 1000 runs in his first class career. Particularly good news if Davies has recovered his old batting form - we badly missed that last season.

Extremely good stuff from Third Degree and Interesting so far. Largely untroubled - a couple of loud lbw shouts from Petersen against Burns but both seemed more in hope than total conviction.

Cidermen have just taken the new ball ....

Wilson back in the platoon! 284 - 6. Another 16 needed off 3 over to get 3rd batting point ....

afternoon all

third degree and interesting both with hundreds makes me

Great work from Third Degree and Interesting with their tons clawing us back into the match! It has just occurred to me that between the two team there are 5 wicketkeepers and two further players who have kept for England in the match though.

3rd batting point

4th and final batting point reached

Afraid not, JimBob. Only 2 batting points for us! You ony get bonus points in the first 110 overs Sorry!

guildfordbat wrote:Afraid not, JimBob. Only 2 batting points for us! You ony get bonus points in the first 110 overs Sorry!

when did that change guildford i'm now

meaker goes for a duck

interesting out for 147

surrey declare 18 runs behind
2 overs for somerset to face tonight

A bit puzzled by Surrey's tactics during second part of the day once they avoided follow on. Thought they might have tried to accelerate and move the match along a bit.

Odd at the end by both sides, Corporal. Post more tonight.

king_carlos wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:
PS King Carlos - many supporters feel your dog was unlucky not to win a contract extension!

In all seriousness I was very proud of his efforts. Considering he's approaching 54 in dog years he would've had significantly more time with his best reactions still intact than Solanki or De Bruyn do, however Adams did refer to his lack of opposable thumbs as a significant issue in gripping the bat. On the other hand his fielding was brilliant apart from that worrying tendency to return the ball to whoever threw it when backing up the stumps which led to significant over throws and frustration for the members when we repeatedly got accused of ball tampering due to bite marks....

Home after an excellent day at The Oval, many thanks to guildfordbat for showing me around the ground and pavilion

I was seriously impressed with both Burns and Davies, the latter was slightly more fluent and timed the ball a bit better but Burns looks so solid, compact and controlled. The first session was especially good but they started to get a bit bogged down after lunch and that culminated in a couple of wickets and just 70 odd runs between lunch and tea. In the evening session Batty batted very well and his innings included a 4 and 6 over midwicket off a couple of short Dockrell deliveries.

However, once Batty and then Meaker were out in quick succession a bizarre period of play occurred whereby Davies would face 4/5 balls of an over with the field spread entirely on the boundary. He would refuse a single until the end of the over and then the process would repeat. Our best guess was that Surrey wanted Davies to get to 150 as we declared as soon as he was out, I feel like we'd have been better giving ourselves at least 5 overs at Somerset this evening rather than 2.

Annoyingly just 2 batting points were earned due to the slow rate of scoring in our innings although the main reason for this was the very slow start and loss of wickets from the previous day. As I said to guildford earlier - we won't win many games by batting at that pace.

I thought Somerset bowled very well in general and limited the bad balls on offer (which also kept the scoring rate down). Overton looked quick and caused some problems, Thomas as accurate as ever and Dockrell was steady without getting much help although he seemed to get a couple to turn and bounce a bit.

All in all though I most definitely would have taken the end of play scorecard if offered it this morning! I also can't believe it stayed dry all day, I had visions of seeing about 10 overs all day!

Glad Carrot enjoyed his Oval debut and fully endorse his comments.

Burns and Davies will rightly get the headlines. Two excellent performances. I would though emphasise how much I also liked Batty's innings. A characteristic contribution from him playing with only the team in mind. Not only did he provide valuable runs but also an injection of momentum.

Carrot is certainly right to praise the efforts of the Cidermen. They stuck at it without fail. I keep hearing commentators saying that Steve Kirby is the nicest guy in the world off the pitch. All I can say is that he certainly doesn't look it on the pitch as he continually chunters away and bristles with determination emanating from every pore. I really like him!

PS Surrey officials refused to comment tonight on rumours that the club had only signed Azhar Mahmood for this season's T20 campaign after a breakdown in contractual discussions with King Carlos' dog.

Guildford, I totally agree with you about Surreys odd tactics, having avoided the follow on and with a draw the most likely outcome surely the two options were to bat through and try to get to maximum batting points or to declare earlier and have 10-12 overs at them instead of 2.
Anyway great to see Burns getting off to a flyer I would love one of our youngsters to actually fulfill there full potential.
I'm hoping Dernbach has come of age as well.
WIlson is still to convince me, we have Davis keeping so Wilson is in purely as a batsman personally Id rather have Roy in there instead.
Also would not have gone with two spinners!!!

Other than that Im happy At the end of day 2 I would have happily taken a draw which is the only result I can see happening now

Somerset 75 - 3. Likely draw. But Batty has just dismissed Hildreth - maybe he and Keedy can run through the middle order, and tail....

Credit to George Dobell for pointing out the snooker parallels of Steve Davies yesterday making 147.

guildfordbat wrote:Credit to George Dobell for pointing out the snooker parallels of Steve Davies yesterday making 147.

The Brain takes a wicket. 84 - 4

Somerset declared on 251 -9 and the match ended in a draw without us batting again. Rather predictable after our strong fightback yesterday - unrealistic to expect us to go on and win although Churchy got excited when Meaker redicovered his form and took a fivefer .

Batty chipped in with another couple of wickets - useful contributions from him throughout this match. A nil return this time out for Dernbach with 1 each for Brain and Keedy who had a disappointing debut. 90s from Petersen and Buttler.

I agreed with Johnny Barran that Petersen was man of the match - an excellent first innings which commenced when Dernbach was on fire and more runs today in Somerset's second. I also agreed with Churchy that Burns was our best player - yes, he was slightly overshadowed by Davies yesterday but deserves massive credit for holding out during 43 very difficult overs on Thursday when more experienced heads were falling around him.

The vibes I'm picking up are that Surrey want to squeeze Tremlett into the starting line up for next week's CC match at the Oval against Sussex. The player most likely to miss out would be Keedy. However, if we want to play Tremlett but not run the risk of overbowling him, a batsman's place could be in jeopardy ....

Seems clear that it was mistake to select two spinners in April - as various people were saying at the time. Better to have played the Viscount who could have kept things steady when Meaker's radar went off target.

Hope with Keedy we don't end up with situation mirroring what happened with Lewis last season where the latter got selected even tho his performance was tailing off. Presumably on basis that it would be awkward to sign up a prominent name near end of their career but not actually play them

A fairly decent effort from Surrey on what seems to have been a pretty flat pitch.

I agree that the decision to play two spinners was perplexing. Perhaps a feeling that they were obliged to play Keedy having made quite a big deal of signing him, whilst wanting to remain loyal to Batty who has done good job. That said, in April the usual decision is 0 or 1 spinners not 1 or 2. I suspect Tremlett will replace Keedy next week.

Good to see Jos Buttler in the runs in four-day cricket. He has quite a poor long-form record. However, disappointing overall from Somerset apart from him and Petersen. Marcus Trescothick hasn't quite been at his best the last couple of seasons (it must be remembered that he is no longer someone who would probably be playing Tests were it not for his depression - at 37 he is starting to get on a bit).

2 spinners turned out to be a mistake but regardless of that it's a shame there wasn't another day to allow what would have been a close finish. Lots of postives to take despite the draw, Dernbach and Meaker both got five-fors, Davies and Burns both got hundreds and Batty had a good solid all round game. Hopefully Tremlett in for Keedy for Wednesday.

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:

Hope with Keedy we don't end up with situation mirroring what happened with Lewis last season where the latter got selected even tho his performance was tailing off. Presumably on basis that it would be awkward to sign up a prominent name near end of their career but not actually play them

Corporal - understand your concern but believe that will be less of an issue as Smith's knowledge of the players and influence grow.

One possible worry. Meaker picked up a thigh strain yesterday and didn't reappear after tea. Hopefully he'll be fine for Wednesday but that's not certain at the moment.

Can somebody please explain DAvies nickname of Interesting for me??

Or even better list the nicknames for all our players as Im struggling to keep up

Much Happier. "Interesting" is reference to the snooker player Steve "interesting" Davies. Who increasingly plays up to the reputation of being boring / ordinary.

Surrey's Davies is of course a genuinely interesting character...

Nicknames come and go a bit on this board - some stick and others don't.

Our former captain was sometimes referred to as Hyphen for obvious reason.

Linley is widely known - well beyond these boards - as the Viscount.

Dunn sometimes called Clive.

Freddie Van den Bergh has been called the Berger Van, partly due to his waif like build....

de Bruyn often referred to as the Brain.

Jon Lewis referred to as "Never knowingly"

Cheers Corporal, and of course our very own breakable glass

Chris 'Pilkington' Tremlett

dony forget wilson the drinks carrier

And Jason Le Roi

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:And Jason Le Roi

Although Le Roi is currently in exile ....

Third degree is one of my favourites currently to be fair. We do almost have a nicknames side if we wanted to field it though;

1.Biff
2.Third Degree
3.The Baron
4. ?
5.The Brain
6.Interesting
7.Le Roi the Boi
8.Boris - it's Batty's nickname according to cricinfo but I don't know why to be honest!
9.Viscount
10.Twiggy - Tremlett
11.Dirtbag - Dernbach's old nickname amongst teammates apparently due to his tatoo's

We could always call Gary Wilson 'Volleyball' in reference to the film 'Cast Away'

Batty has got to be Norah!
In my day all Smith's were Smudgers..............god know's why?!
I had Wilson as Harold..............but our younger posters would probably say 'Who?!'

Nothing at all to do with Surrey but I came across at the weekend a cruel but rather brilliant nickname given to the late Mike Denness when he was skippering England on an overseas tour and appeared lost for ideas.

He was called by some of the team, ''Will''. Think about it!

Guildford

A wicked thought occurred to me with Le Roi If we ever get bored with this one he could simply be called Bob. In other words Brown Or Benning?

Carrotdude wrote:We could always call Gary Wilson 'Volleyball' in reference to the film 'Cast Away'

If anything just calling him Cast Away would seem funnier but could also have harsh connotations to anyone who stumbles on the nickname without making the link!

Corporal - Bob (said of course as Rowan Atkinson did in Blackadder) is good for Roy - though I do hope he doesn't go the same way as Benning did