Surrey vs Kent LV=County Championship

First topic message reminder :

Surrey have named a fourteen man squad    for the LV=County Championship match against Kent at Guildford starting on Sunday.
less face it no one wants to miss guildford  
Tillakaratne Dilshan returns to the Championship squad having missed the recent four day game against Glamorgan due to his involvement in Sri Lanka’s ODI series against South Africa. Stuart Meaker and George Edwards are both included.
There is no place in the squad for our specialist batsman jade   
The Surrey squad to play Kent in the LV=County Championship match at Guildford on Sunday 20th July, Monday 21st July, Tuesday 22nd July and Wednesday 23rd July :
Gary Wilson (capt)
Zafar Ansari
Gareth Batty
Rory Burns
Steven Davies
Tillakaratne Dilshan
Matthew Dunn
George Edwards
Arun Harinath
Tim Linley
Stuart Meaker
Jason Roy
Vikram Solanki
Chris Tremlett

Wow! 7 wickets for Meaker as Riley goes for a pair. Fast bowling at its very best.

303 to win in 76 overs. As I suggested last night, doable but not easy. In my view, don't worry too much about blitzing runs from the off (looking at you King Dave ) - get to lunch safely, then use the Dilscoop and le Roi to really go for it.

Phenominal performance from Meaker! 62.2 overs in the match on his return, 11 wickets and a 50! Well played sir!

So 303 to win, and no internet access for me this afternoon!
Here's hoping guildford witness's a fabulous run chase............with Meaker hitting the winning runs for good measure!!

so much for getting to lunch safely  

looking like we will have to settle for the draw after that start   

Just for once, I wouldn't blame Solanki for getting out straight after lunch. Brute of a ball from the impressive Haggett which rose on him and went off the bat to third slip / gully area.

Bit of trouble here. 78/3, needing 227 more off 62 overs. The Dilscoop is already chancing his arm (now on 22) whilst Davies has raced to 23.

why are our batsmen playing like it's a 20/20 match   

Surrey need to calm down here. 227 more @ 4/over compares favourably with 78/3 so far at 5.5/over. More haste, less wickets please, chaps. (PS: and more than a bit nervous that the BBC scorecard has now been stuck on 14.5 overs for a minute or two...)

 4 down   

Urgh, they didn't listen. 82-4, cue a Roy
a/ cheap dismissal that continues our reckless slide towards defeat; OR
b/ special that goes a long way towards winning us the match

they must be getting some practice in for the next two days   

less then 200 to win   

most of the kent bowling figures wouldn't look out of place on friday   

  roy gone
will we get to tea   

50 for Dilscoop   

has to be said some of the most brain dead batting from surrey this season

halfway there   

dilscoop gone game over

What the hell? We're falling between two stools here: neither a serious run chase (too many early wickets for that) nor shutting up shop and settling for the draw. As a result, we have to rely on Clive engineering an even larger last wicket stand than he managed with another partner in our first innings.

What a waste of 3 and a bit days competitive cricket.

Thanks,for the reports everyone..obviously a very disappointing result..but,it certainly sounds like the pitch was still doing something for the faster bowlers...as it was on Monday....I refuse to be downhearted as there are lots of positives to be taken from our season thus far...and,still some lessons to be learnt too...and,we are not out of the promotion race...cracking performance from Meaker...and congrats to Kent...taken over 4 days..it sounds like they deserved it...I wonder what would have happened if we'd batted first on winning the toss!

I was there for three out of the four days and in my opinion, despite Meaker being the game's outstanding bowler, Kent's bowling unit outbowled Surrey's on a wicket offering more pace and bounce than the usual Woodbridge Road one. Congratulations to the groundsman there for a very good wicket.

Matt Dunn has 'done' extremely well this season but always offers up some loose stuff and Guildford is less forgiving than most grounds. I thought Haggett and to a lesser extent Hartley slightly outbowled him on this occasion and Stevens undoubtedly outbowled Linley, who looked innocuous. I thought Surrey missed Tremlett, who would have been a handful on that wicket in my opinion.

As for today's batting, it was disappointing but Burns and Solanki got jaffas and Ansari got a decent one too. Surrey really needed a solid start to set it up for the middle order but the new ball was tricky to play all through this match when put in the right place which I'm told Surrey didn't do on the first morning. Davies, Dilshan and Wilson did get out to loose shots but I think it was fair enough to be positive and go for the win.

Once they were gone the wicket was always offering too much to expect the last four batsmen to last too long despite the quite fortuitous last wicket partnership in the first innings.

It's now twelve years since Surrey won a Championship match at Guildford and they have only won one of the last seven one day matches there too. A real bogey ground. Sort it out guildfordbat   

What a disappointment in the end, although overall, Kent did outplay us for large parts.
I'm not that bothered with promotion this season to be honest, we have taken strides to improve and the positives are there for all to see - Roy's maturity, Ansari's batting, Clive's consistent(ish) bowling, Third Degree's improvement and Meaker's return! Curran also looks like a star in the making, but unfortunately next season now. Harold has also impressed with his captaincy and form, and we have Sibley, 'Boy' George Edwards and Aneesh Kapil waiting in the wings. Just need to sort an overseas player who's going to play and stay the whole season (a 'quality' spinner please) and we will surely have the makings of team to get out of Div 2 and be challenging for Div 1

A lovely 4 days and a wonderful advert for festival cricket at Guildford.

Still a disappointing result though. Our bowlers - ok, Meaker - did what was needed this morning. Meaks was on fire. He bowled with great pace and determination being well supported by keeper (Burns again today) and slips. Fully deserved his match haul of 11 wickets. Worth noting that in joint second place for Surrey were Batty, Dunn and Linley with just 2 each. I spoke briefly to Meaker at lunchtime - polite and modest, giving a lot of credit to Dunn for their splendid last wicket partnership yesterday.

Our batting was actually not as reckless as it probably seemed to those following the score on cricinfo. We didn't need asking twice to punish any bad balls and the fast outfield ensured four runs most times; nothing wrong with that. What we needed and badly failed to achieve was a substantial partnership. Wickets fell too regularly - we desperately needed to get to lunch with one at most down, not both openers. To be fair, this was mainly due to good bowling from the trio of Stevens, Haggett and Claydon (thought he bowled particularly well in our first innings but with little luck then). They were also well supported by keeper Billings who had a fine all round game and the other fielders behind. Dilshan looked a class act but probably should have reined it in a bit once Davies went. After Dilshan had gone, it seemed only a matter of time and so it proved.

Word after the match was that Dunn has a slight injury niggle and will probably sit out tomorrow's t20.

Echo the thoughts of others - disappointing result, but an excellent game of cricket and a real advert for the competition.

Amazing stats from the voice of the beehive. (Great name by the way!)...I thought it had been a while since we last won a match ...but just hadn't appreciated just how long it was....will it change against Glamorgan I wonder....I think it just might