SURREY VS SOMERSET SURREY VS GLAMORGAN SURREY VS ESSEX ROYAL LONDON CUP

SURREY HAVE NAMED A 13-MAN SQUAD FOR THE TRIP TO TAUNTON AND CARDIFF AND THE HOME MATCH AGAINST ESSEX THAT MARKS THE START OF THE ROYAL LONDON ONE DAY CUP.
Both wicket-keeper batsman Ollie Pope and seamer Ravi Rampaul have been included in a first team squad for the first time this season and will be hopeful of earning selection in the XI tomorrow morning.
Mark Footitt misses out throughi njury .
FULL SURREY SQUAD:
Gareth Batty (c)
Scott Borthwick
Rory Burns
Sam Curran
Tom Curran
Jade Dernbach
Ben Foakes (wk)
Stuart Meaker
Ollie Pope
Ravi Rampaul
Kumar Sangakkara
Dominic Sibley
Mark Stoneman
Ravioli and either Pope or Sibley to miss out tough to call that one as Pope has done well in the second XI this week.
Over to you chaps

Cheers, JimBob.

For the Somerset game, I'll go along with you about Ravioli missing out although I reckon it'll be a tight call between him and Meaker. Think the Pope will also be on the bench tomorrow although he's close on Sibley's heels.

With Zaf gone and Taunton a spinner's track these days, I would expect Borthwick to have a twirl there.

Forgot to say the game is being broadcast live on sky sports 2

Cheers Jimbob. Rampaul and Pope to miss out for me.

Somerset win toss and choose to bowl.

Looks like a green top.

Pope and Rampaul miss out.

As we thought, Ravioli stays in the canteen and the Pope in the Vatican! 

Don't know the Somerset eleven yet but their young spinners Leach and Bess aren't in the 13 man squad. Assuming he plays, the slow stuff to be bowled by Waller.

The Cidermen leave out leggie Waller and slow left armer van der Merwe. They're clearly looking for the track to aid the seamers first dig.

From experience, watch out for trundler Allenby sending down a few overs of medium pace filth. If Olly's team were up against him in a Saturday afternoon game, I reckon Olly would be looking for Allenby to go wicketless for 40 in 7 overs. Too often against Surrey, he picks up a couple cheaply! 

Edit: Van der Merwe is playing. Myburgh and Waller on the Somerset bench.

34/0 off 7. Sound start. Predictably, Rocky doing more of the punching.

84/0 off 15.

50 up for Rocky.   Sibley on 30.

''A very impressive start from the Surrey openers'' - Rob Key on Sky.

I like Key, he knows his stuff and he's right. However, don't even think about opening the bar at this stage! Taunton's a small ground and runs can come in a flood.

That's annoying! Having been dropped the ball before by Trego, Gregory gets Rocky caught top edging by ex-Surrey man Elgar.

90/1 off 16. Sanga joins Sibley. Lot resting here on Sanga imo. If he were to fall quickly, I could see us folding for a below par score. However, if he bats for the next 25 overs, we're going to be in a very strong position.

Our one day side really lacks a "power hitter" imo - a lot of good stroke players and nurdlers, but don't have that x factor bat to come in and score 50 off 30

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:Our one day side really lacks a "power hitter" imo - a lot of good stroke players and nurdlers, but don't have that x factor bat to come in and score 50 off 30

Yep, I agree with that. It looks an old fashioned type batting order - regular batters (albeit Sanga is world class) and keeper followed by the bowlers. No real fizz down the late middle order, it just seems to fizzle out.

That's why I'm so keen for Sanga to bat a minimum of 20 overs today. He's already had a life. Dropped off Gregory who now has 2 wickets - Sibley caught behind by Davies. Burns now at the crease - decent CC batsman but not convinced he belongs in a side with serious one day ambitions.

118/2 off 23 and Somerset turn to spin for the first time as van der Merwe comes on. 

If he bowls a full ten on the reel, that'll take Somerset to the end of the 42nd over. Think that's a bit unlikely unless he bowls really well. Expect Trego or Allenby to bowl a few of 'his' overs.

Sanga nicks at a wide one from Davy and is caught behind.

162/4 in the 33rd. The modern approach seems to be for the batting side to double its score from here. Like Olly, I just don't see us having the firepower to do anything like that.

Still too early to be making sensible predictions but I won't let that stop me making a rash one! I doubt we'll win this game now just on the amount of runs scored. We are going to need to take 10 wickets. 

Knight going on about ''plenty of batting to come'' and particularly referring to the Curran brothers. I don't go along with that nearly so much. Tom is far more a bowler whilst Sam's batting potential has yet to be fulfilled.

188/4 in the 37th. Foakes probably batting as well as he's done this year which is encouraging and moves to 26 at better than a run a ball. Need to maintain that and then improve further.

Van der Merwe does bowl his 10 on the reel (despite my earlier doubts) and finishes with 0/49. That won't win him any MotM awards but it might help the Cidermen to a win. I would have liked us getting after him more but we too often lost a wicket to a seamer at the other end during his spell and had to start again.

Now 234/5 after 43. 50 up for Foakes.  ''Giving Surrey's innings some impetus'' - Atherton re Foakes, bang on.

guildfordbat wrote:Sanga nicks at a wide one from Davy and is caught behind.

162/4 in the 33rd. The modern approach seems to be for the batting side to double its score from here. Like Olly, I just don't see us having the firepower to do anything like that.

Still too early to be making sensible predictions but I won't let that stop me making a rash one! I doubt we'll win this game now just on the amount of runs scored. We are going to need to take 10 wickets. 

Foakes is playing a blinder here - but for me it's showing the limitations of our batting that despite one of our bats scoring 92 off 60 odd we're struggling to get near 300. An innings like this should take us to the 330-350 range

Yeah, great effort by Foakes but I'm not convinced 290 is enough. The track seemed true and Taunton is a small ground. Just the one six and that struck by Batty in the last over. Too often, we seemed to be ticking over (Burns - 15 off 30, hmmm) or regrouping after a wicket fell. Feel we let van der Merwe have things his own way too much.

We can't afford to give any gifts to the Cidermen when they bat. Going to have to bowl and field well. Stick with my earlier view that we're going to have to take 10 wickets to win this one.

Wonderful start by Surrey and Dernbach with the ball! Bowling with some pace and movement. Two wickets for him as Somerset stutter to 7/2 off 3 overs.

Edit: it gets worse for the hosts as Allenby gifts a catch to Meaker off Sam Curran. 11/3 in the 4th.

From an utterly awful start of 22/5, Somerset have mounted a very decent recovery and advanced to 115/5 off 20. Incredibly, they're almost up with the required run rate.

5 more wickets for a Surrey win. Without them, it could be Somerset pulling off one of the greatest ever recoveries.

I guess every other supporter is hiding behind the sofa! 

Somerset 172/5 off 28. Nicely ahead of the rate. Meaker caned, going for 45 off 5.

The way that Elgar and van der Merwe have batted suggests that our total was well below par.

Borthwick now on ....

150 partnership

guildfordbat wrote:Van der Merwe does bowl his 10 on the reel (despite my earlier doubts) and finishes with 0/49. That won't win him any MotM awards but it might help the Cidermen to a win. I would have liked us getting after him more but we too often lost a wicket to a seamer at the other end during his spell and had to start again.

...

Mind you, a century to go with his 0/49 will!!! 

Meaker

A wkt sadly too late

guildfordbat wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:Van der Merwe does bowl his 10 on the reel (despite my earlier doubts) and finishes with 0/49. That won't win him any MotM awards but it might help the Cidermen to a win. I would have liked us getting after him more but we too often lost a wicket to a seamer at the other end during his spell and had to start again.

...

Mind you, a century to go with his 0/49 will!!! 

150 won't do his MotM chances any harm either! 

Meaker has now bowled more overs than Dernbach. Utterly ridiculous! No point holding Dernbach back for the last 4 overs if the game's finished by then! 

guildfordbat wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:Van der Merwe does bowl his 10 on the reel (despite my earlier doubts) and finishes with 0/49. That won't win him any MotM awards but it might help the Cidermen to a win. I would have liked us getting after him more but we too often lost a wicket to a seamer at the other end during his spell and had to start again.

...

Mind you, a century to go with his 0/49 will!!! 

GB I love your sense of humour! I was vaguely following the match at work dipping and out to the BBC website, but when I saw The Cidermen were 22or so for 5 I thought, stupidly that's it...no need to check again... Still maybe if Somerset can win from 22-5, maybe Jeremy Corbyn can win the next election ...mind you, we are still waiting for our free ticket courtesy of my wife's unison membership....JC has missed a trick there!

Van der Merwe had never even scored a fifty before today

I think I've finally witnessed a Surrey one day performance more embarrassing than this
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/current/match/491476.html

thegooch7 wrote:I think I've finally witnessed a Surrey one day performance more embarrassing than this
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/current/match/491476.html

Brilliant post with a terrible blast from the past, Goochie! Good to have you back after your extended winter training.

I'm feeling surprisingly relaxed about this match. The perverse beauty of the One Day game nowadays is that relatively modest players (ok, he's a double international, but...) suddenly can have a game where they see the thing like a basketball - eg Matt Coles's extraordinary 100 against us a couple of years ago - or that no total is safe. Even at 40-5 I had a bad feeling about this one, it just looked like one of those days. So it proved.

More worryingly, it showed how much we're going to miss Zaf and the often largely unseen 30 or 40, or couple of wickets at crucial times, that he gave us so often. Unless Borthwick can be persuaded to turn his arm over more, then I can see Virdi or even the Burger Van coming more into the grand scheme of things if this summer continues as dry as this spring and pitches start to take spin.

For today's game, Rampaul could well replace Meaker. Meaks was Surrey's leading wicket taker in the RL 50 in 2016 but wasn't at the races on Friday.

Very much need a win today to get back on track. As well as the players firing, we need for the weather. It's a dodgy forecast and our own resident met expert the Corporal has gone AWOL!

Yep, Rampaul replaces Meaker as Surrey win toss and bowl.

Usual good start from Jade and then nothing from anyone else

131/4 around the half-way mark.

Better captaincy from Batty to bring Dernbach back who gets his third wicket. 3/16 off 6 for him now. Very impressive. It's possible, you know, just possible ....

jimbobgooner wrote:Usual good start from Jade and then nothing from anyone else

150/4 off 30.

Jade certainly head and shoulders above the other Surrey bowlers. 3/24 off his 8. Now replaced by Rampaul who was expensive in his 4 overs earlier. Right call though to take Jade off now, need to hang onto those 2 remaining overs for a little while yet.

Glam doing pretty well but probably feel they've lost 1 wicket more than they would have liked at this stage.

Ravioli gets James

175/5 off 35.

We're chipping away but Glam keeping the run rate at 5 an over. A couple of wickets in the next 5 or 6 overs would put us in the box seats but if they're 200+ with 10 overs still to go and 5 wickets in hand, we could be in a spot of bother ....

2nd wkt for baby face

202/6 with 9 overs left.

Glam still in the position of having 1 more wicket down than they would have wanted which means they can't go for broke quite yet.

YES!!! That's what we wanted - 209/7 as Sam gets Meschede caught behind. Glam have just over 7 overs left but not enough wickets in hand to go big (well, that's the theory ).

240 to win
Apart from Jade and Nora awful bowling

Glam have something to bowl at but we're favourites at the half-way mark.

Always a real positive for the bowling side to not allow their opponents to have their full allocation of overs. Dernbach the out and out spearhead. I'm more charitable than JimBob towards the other seamers - they all ended up amongst the wickets and pegged it back after dodgy starts.

Raining!

Play to start at 16.45
182 off 29 overs
Fair to say that's not right when Glamorgan didn't score over 5 a over

jimbobgooner wrote:Play to start at 16.45
182 off 29 overs
Fair to say that's not right when Glamorgan didn't score over 5 a over

JimBob - I'm sure the Corporal will give you a highly detailed but still very easy to understand explanation of the workings of Duckworth Lewis as soon as he returns.

Anyway, I still expect us to win. Having 10 wickets in hand for just 29 overs is a major plus - that probably goes some way to explaining how our target has been set but I don't want to tread on the Corporal's toes! All going well, see you in the bar for a celebratory drink. Ours to win or lose from here.

Sibley gone