Surrey vs Essex Eagles NATWEST T20 BLAST

SURREY HAVE NAMED A THIRTEEN MAN SQUAD FOR THE NATWEST T20 BLAST GAME AGAINST THE ESSEX EAGLES ON FRIDAY AT THE KIA OVAL.
Gary Wilson may be added to the squad dependant on the conclusion of Ireland’s Intercontinental Cup game against the UAE which is currently taking place in Dublin.
The Surrey squad to play the Essex Eagles in the NatWest T20 Blast at the Kia Oval on Friday 5th June:
Gareth Batty (capt)
Zafar Ansari
James Burke
Rory Burns
Tom Curran
Steven Davies
Matthew Dunn
Ben Foakes
Moises Henriques
Aneesh Kapil
Azhar Mahmood
Jason Roy
Kumar Sangakkara
if wilson doesn't make it back burns and burke for me if he does add foakes to them two
over to you guys

Thanks Jimbob. Foakes may not have been heartbroken on hearing that UAE managed to hang on with their last wicket pair batting to take the match against Ireland into the final day.  So I assume Harold won't be able to return in time for the Surrey match.  Agree with you about the likely line up.

Cheers, JimBob.

Burkey had a good game for the seconds today (see ''Surrey news/articles'' thread) - think he'll play, possibly edging it over Kapil. Agree about Burns missing out.

Stewie and Ford may not be too unhappy about Wilson being unavailable. It saves them from having to make a very tricky decision. Although it was a CC game, Foakes had a very good debut and it wouldn't be certain that he would be left out.

Already a ''must win'' game. Can't afford to lose 3 out of 4.

Surrey win toss and bat.

Burns, Kapil and Foakes miss out. Presume Wilson was on the first jet back!

JimBob - are you doing pitch side reporting tonight?

guildfordbat wrote: Presume Wilson was on the first jet back!

Ireland's match ended after four balls today.... Feel a bit sorry for Foakes not getting a game even though Harold has been jetting around all day....

Alistair Cook's playing a t20 game

21/2 off 4. Very much on the back foot already with Davies and Roy gone. Wonderfully effective over from Westley to start the game (1/3) - think Essex will bank that and he won't bowl again tonight.

Still not good. 80/4 off 11. Wilson just gone for a duck and used 5 balls in the process - hope the air miles were worth it! Sanga and Azhar now batting - our last hopes probably resting with one of them really bashing on from here ....

I remain unconvinced on the merits of selecting someone who, earlier on the same day, was playing in a match in another country.

guildfordbat wrote:Still not good. 80/4 off 11. Wilson just gone for a duck and used 5 balls in the process - hope the air miles were worth it! Sanga and Azhar now batting - our last hopes probably resting with one of them really bashing on from here ....

HOW DARE THEE DOUBT #ansariforengland

Why are we having to put up with Essex Man's one eyed commentary for a home game? Couldn't they afford a journalist?

PS: Olly was right: #ansariforengland does his stuff with the bat. Now for the ball.

Yeah, good and much needed runs from Zaf!

All in all a bit of a disappointing batting performance though. We shouldn't be allowing someone like Bopara to be the star of the show.

Dunn picks up the dangerous Ryder and then cook

Olly wrote:Dunn picks up the dangerous Ryder and then cook

I like Dunn. Saw him get Cook with a beauty in the CC match at the Oval last year. Can be expensive though.

We need to halt the runs now and almost certainly need wickets to do that ....

Essex 116/2 off 14 and looking good for the win.

Essex win fairly comfortably by six wickets with four balls to spare.  Down to Ansari's fireworks at the end of the innings (39 runs off 16 balls) that we posted a reasonable total.  

Azhar Mahmood is aged 40 so it shouldn't be a surprise if he's finding it increasingly difficult to reproduce his form of a few years ago when he was one of the best all rounders on the T20 circuit.

A 6 wicket win for Essex with 4 balls to spare. Just going from the stats on cricinfo, we nearly always seemed to be playing catch up. Stewie said on Monday that Azhar was ''rusty'' for his first game last week and his figures don't show much improvement. He and all the other seamers were quite expensive. Surprised Zaf didn't bowl and maybe Batty could also have bowled more.

I think Ansari may have earned a promotion up the batting order ahead of either or both of Azhar and Harold.  His strike rate of 243.75 in this innings was the fifth highest ever for Surrey in T20 (minimum 25 runs).  Although he's a very sedate batsman opening in the cc, he does seem to have the ability to hit frequent boundaries in this competition.

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:Essex win fairly comfortably by six wickets with four balls to spare.  Down to Ansari's fireworks at the end of the innings (39 runs off 16 balls) that we posted a reasonable total.  

Azhar Mahmood is aged 40 so it shouldn't be a surprise if he's finding it increasingly difficult to reproduce his form of a few years ago when he was one of the best all rounders on the T20 circuit.

So why on earth are we playing him? Surely better for the future of the club to play Kapil or a youngster? I saw Martin Bicknell 'acting' in a repeat of Heartbeat yesterday - perhaps he could come back too?

guildfordbat wrote:Surrey win toss and bat.

Burns, Kapil and Foakes miss out. Presume Wilson was on the first jet back!

JimBob - are you doing pitch side reporting tonight?

all i can say about yesterday guildford is when mahmood is your best ground fielder you know you have problems