Surrey vs Glamorgan LV=County Championship

SURREY HAVE NAMED A THIRTEEN MAN SQUAD FOR THEIR OPENING GAME IN THE LV=COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP AGAINST GLAMORGAN STARTING ON SUNDAY IN CARDIFF.
Kumar Sangakkara will make his Surrey debut having arrived at the Club this week and Kevin Pietersen is also included. Chris Tremlett is unavailable for selection due to a minor hamstring strain he picked up against Oxford MCCU
The Surrey squad to play Glamorgan in the LV=County Championship at the Swalec Stadium on Sunday 19th April, Monday 20th April, Tuesday 21st April and Wednesday 22nd April :
Gareth Batty (capt)
Zafar Ansari
Rory Burns
Tom Curran
Steven Davies
Jade Dernbach
Matthew Dunn
Stuart Meaker
Kevin Pietersen
Jason Roy
Kumar Sangakkara
Vikram Solanki
Gary Wilson
no sign of foakes yet guildford

solanki will miss out imo curran and dernbach to fight it out for the last place
it's good to be back

I would agree with your assessment Jimbob about the likely team. Solanki's pre season form has not been great and we now have two massively experienced batsmen (Sanga and KP) so it probably makes sense in any case to try and give somewhat younger players a go.

No great surprises in the squad, though it will be interesting to see how soon Balcombe gets a look in.  I supose the only other two possibilities might have been Kapil or Sibley. I haven't paid too close attention to pre season squads but I am not sure that Dernbach, Curran or Balcombe have featured much so far, if at all ...

Cheers, JimBob.

Agree with you and the Corporal about the likely team.

I'm not screaming out for Foakes' inclusion but felt he would at least make the squad, if only to act as a reminder to Wilson to stay on his toes.

Curran and Balcs had a very small involvement in the pre-season games whilst Dernbach didn't play at all. According to the Wallpaper site*, he's had an intercostal injury - think that's ribs and chest, right Corporal?

*Olly - to get to the official Surrey Supporters' Club website, you need to google ''Oval World on the net''. That's sometimes referred to on here as the Wallpaper site. If you just google ''Oval World'', you get taken to ... yes, you've guessed it ... a wallpaper site!

Guildford - I would hope and expect that Foakes will get into the team pretty soon. I'm thinking it's fairly unlikely that Davies will resume keeping this season, if he doesn't does so in the very early weeks of the season. So, despite Surrey's plethora of wicketkeeping options, it may well come down to just Wilson v Foakes for the keeping slot.  As far as I can see the Irish national (men's) team is hardly playing over this Summer.

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:Guildford - I would hope and expect that Foakes will get into the team pretty soon. I'm thinking it's fairly unlikely that Davies will resume keeping this season, if he doesn't does so in the very early weeks of the season. So, despite Surrey's plethora of wicketkeeping options, it may well come down to just Wilson v Foakes for the keeping slot.  As far as I can see the Irish national (men's) team is hardly playing over this Summer.

Hi Corporal - I thought the same about Ireland hardly playing this summer and couldn't reconcile it with comments made by Stewart and Ford about Wilson's lack of availability. However, someone commented on the Wallpaper site (keeping up, Olly? ) that Ireland have a lot of World T20 qualifiers coming up in July that aren't currently shown.

Thanks for getting the thread up and running Jimbob. It's good to be back!  

I'd echo guildfords thoughts on Foakes. I can understand him missing out on a  starting place given the performances from Wilson last season and his century in the warm-up game. However to sign a player of Foakes potential then not even have him in the squad is a strange decision in my opinion.

1.Third degree
2.Ansari
3.Sanga
4.KP
5.Interesting
6.Le Roi  
7.Wilson (wk)
8.Norah (c)
9.Curran
10.Meaker
11.Dunn

Thought I'd give Olly a couple of tests to see if he did his revision from the Surrey page

That's what I'd go for from the squad selected. A strong batting line-up but a lot of pressure on an inexperienced 3 man pace attack. You could argue including Dernbach for experience but I've been pretty unimpressed with his FC performances for a while now.

If Ansari and Burns can set a foundation then we should be in for some fireworks from Sanga, KP, Davies and Roy though!

Word is like Carlos's team that sanga will be 3 and KP at 4

Boy what a line-up

I'm near certain it'll be Sanga at 3 and Pietersen at 4.

On paper we should score a shedload of runs and more. I just hope it's a while before Olly discovers that we play on something else with very often different results.

My more pressing concern is - where do we get the 20 Welsh wickets from? All the bowlers are going to need to perform with one getting star billing.

Dernbach in and no meaker is the surprising team news from Cardiff - Surrey to bat first

In honour of the great man who so sadly left us recently "Mornin' everybody".

It is indeed great to be back at the dawn of what could (?should) be a very exciting season for Surrey. Not least as we have at least three home grown players knocking on the door of international recognition - Le Roi, Dunn and Zafer and two genuine international superstars towards the top of the order, in Sanga and KP (so glad he signed for us again).

I agree with guildfordbat - as always - that the key will be for some of our myriad bowling options to come up with the goods and get us 20 wickets a game.

morning all excellent start for the rey

100 for 0

Curse of the JimBob!

Good opening session in initially difficult conditions. However, Burns' wicket in the last over before lunch stops it from being an excellent start.

guildfordbat wrote:Curse of the JimBob!

Good opening session in initially difficult conditions.  However, Burns' wicket in the last over before lunch stops it from being an excellent start.

Excellent first session for Surrey, especially considering Burns hadn't shown much form pre season.  Ansari and Sanga digging in after lunch.

Woops. Nelson strikes and Ansari falls.

KP looked good, but falls for 19. 150 - 3.  Important not to waste the good start.

150/3. Pietersen falls to Meschede. Caught at slip for 19.

Are we refueling or are the wheels coming off? Rest of this session is very important to deciding that ....

first batting point of the season

227 - 3 at tea. Steady rebuilding job by Sanga and Davies.  53* for Sanga who sounded untroubled  Davies 44* has had a few streaky shots through the slips but has also hit some cracking boundaries.

Can't believe people got to see Sangakkara bat for free in Cardiff today.

Lucky sods #GOAT

As the Corporal says, Sanga and Davies have done a good rebuilding job. We're in a useful position but a couple of quick wickets would give things a different look. Really want at least one of these two to make a ton ....

100* partnership between Sanga and Davies.

150* partnership and 3rd batting point.

Cracking century for Sanga

And a century too for Davies

guildfordbat wrote:Really want at least one of these two to make a ton ....

both ok

4th batting point and 200 partnership

Sangakkara now averages over 200 in his last 6 innings.

Mental - what a man

363 - 3  Unbeaten partnership of 213 between Sanga and Davies. Excellent batting.  Sounds like a good pitch, so we may well struggle to get anything like 20 wickets.  But full batting points would be a good start.

Yes the true test will come when we bowl: this batting line up should pick up plentiful batting points against Div 2 attacks. This team has 5+2 bowlers in it (Dernbach, Curran, Dunn, Batty and Ansari; plus Roy and Pietersen for a few overs if we need to disturb a stubborn partnership). In an ideal world that would be enough to pick up 20 wickets after a big first innings score.

An excellent start to the season. to Sanga and Davies for their undefeated tons - great stuff! And when one of them goes tomorrow, the Glamorgan bowlers will next come up against Roy who should feel free to try and bash as many as he can in even quicker time than normal!

Credit as well to Burns and Ansari for their century opening partnership. Conditions particularly seemed hard in the opening hour and they did well to tough that out. Given that he's only passing through, probably not a bad thing from a Surrey perspective that we weren't too reliant on runs from Pietersen.

So, extremely good so far. However, as Simon reminds us, the really difficult part of taking 20 wickets is still to come. Simon is also right in identifying the reasonable number of bowlers and options we have. I would though happily swap one of our spin options for an extra seamer at this time of year. There again, I shouldn't be too greedy tonight.

Olly wrote:Dernbach in and no meaker is the surprising team news from Cardiff -

Olly - I wondered if Meaks had some sort of niggle but the Club website refers to him (and Solanki) missing out on selection and heading back south to play in a seconds' game at the Rose Bowl.

An excellent opening day with Sanga showing his class. Also great to see Davies start the season so well, given how up and down his form has been the last 2 years I really hope he can keep that sort of form up.

A solid opening partnership is what any good batting line-up needs to be built on and in 1.Burns 2.Ansari we seem to be developing one which could serve us brilliantly for years to come. If I wanted to be picky I could argue that they need to convert more 40 and 50s into game changing scores. However their first job is blunting the new ball and opening bowlers to let the middle order do what they do best and they seem to be developing the habit of that very well. They also have a tendency to make century opening partnerships which are always nice to see as well.

As has been said taking 20 wickets could be tough. I'd agree that an extra seamer would be good but realistically they'd have to come at the expense of Norah meaning a stand-in skipper. For the first game of the season I think it's right to go with 3 seamers and Batty so that both captain and players have a chance to play as they will for much of the season. I especially think this given Tremlett and Linley being unavailable plus Balcombe not featuring during the warm-up games.

Davies and Sanga rattling along nicely this morning. Both nearing 150s as the final batting point achieved with plenty to spare.

Curse of the corporal this time! Sanga out for an 'average' 149, caught Billy Bragg, bowled Bumble!?

Hi Gooch - welcome to the new season!  Le Roi falls as well for a sedate 32.  We haven't exactly taken Glam to the cleaners this morning with our scoring rate.  But still a decent enough session, moving on to 495 - 5.  Davies on 167 - only 25 short of his first class best.

next task now is to get every glamorgan bowler past a 100 cosker is done 4 to go

Declare 20/30 minutes before tea I reckon - have a smash around for an hour or so

ta corporal! Looking good so far - I'd bat another hour, let Interesting get his double ton. We're obviously only hoping to bat once now, so set Glam 400+ to avoid the follow on

Olly - I think that's probably the intention. However, best not to get too ahead of ourselves. Our tail is usually very poor. The final 4 could all go cheaply and quickly.

Anyway, at the moment all is very good but we know the hard part of getting into those 20 wickets is still to come.

Whoops! Meant to also say - a warm welcome to the new season, Goochie.

As regards hoping to enforce the follow on - suspect you're right as it now looks as if we're going to bat on for some time still. Just hope it all works out - we've only got 3 front line seamers here. Would think they'll be pretty knackered just getting 10 wickets - plus Dernbach went into this match on the back of an injury and no warm up games.

5 Welshmen in the hutch tonight and I'll be ecstatic. 3 or 4 - very pleased. 3 - pleased. 2- ok. Less than 2 - apprehensive ....

oh dear wilson flops

100 for carter 3 to go

nora for a duck

Hi Guildford........all that talk of declaring.........dear me, looks like you're going to be right..............again!

Meschede joins the 100 club two to go