SURREY VS ESSEX SPECSAVERS COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP

For the final time this season  
Specsavers County Championship winners Surrey have named their squad to face Essex in the final week of the season at the Kia Oval.
Dean Elgar has completed his spell at Surrey this season and returned to South Africa
Both Tom and Sam Curran are rested ahead of England’s white ball tour of Sri Lanka, which begins next weekend.
The game will be shown on sky sports cricket channel so get ready for some awful commentary
FULL SQUAD:
Rory Burns (captain)
Rikki Clarke
Jade Dernbach
Ben Foakes
Will Jacks
Conor McKerr
Stuart Meaker
Morne Morkel
Ryan Patel
Ollie Pope
Jason Roy
Mark Stoneman
Amar Virdi
Have to say it's a shame Gareth batty wasn't given the chance to say play in the final game hope he will still get a medal (hey Guildford  
Don't see the point of meaker playing as I doubt he will be here next year.
The last place is hard to call do we really want the tail starting at 8 so maybe Dernbach  misses out if we don't mind i'd go patel
Over to you chaps  

Cheers, JimBob. You've had another fine season.

Pleased to see the Club edited their earlier article to make clear who is in the squad. As you say, no Batty. Seems a bit tough on him but I suspect he's content now to concentrate on coaching and playing in just the white ball games. It would have been rough on Virdi though to bench him and we can't really justify playing 2 off spinners at the end of September. I reckon all the squad will get some form of medal from the Club even if not an official ECB Championship medal.

As you suggest, the team here looks a player short. Either the tail starts at 8 or we play Patel as a front line bowler and one of the seam quartet.

I'm going along tomorrow. Got to make up for missing the 2 previous home matches and Olly!

PS JimBob - you going to say who you would have voted for on the other thread? Don't be shy!

I agree with you chaps - harsh on Batty, but ultimately would've been harsher on Virdi (I imagine Gareth being the man he is might have stepped aside anyways if given the call).

It might seem harsh, but I would probably drop McKerr for Dernbach, and go with a seam attack of Morkel, Dernbach, Clarke, Patel with Virdi. Not sure I'd trust McKerr/Patel as our seamers behind Morkel/Clarke just yet

Surrey win the toss, bat and collapse to 41 -4.  We've had a few of these through the season.  Usually someone bails us out. Will this finally be the occasion when that doesn't happen.

48 - 5 now!

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:Surrey win the toss, bat and collapse to 41 -4.  We've had a few of these through the season.  Usually someone bails us out. Will this finally be the occasion when that doesn't happen.

48 - 5 now!

Winning by an innings is going to be even more impressive now

#positivespin

57-7 - Surrey lads a touch hungover from belated/early celebrations?

Afro wrote:

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:Surrey win the toss, bat and collapse to 41 -4.  We've had a few of these through the season.  Usually someone bails us out. Will this finally be the occasion when that doesn't happen.

48 - 5 now!

Winning by an innings is going to be even more impressive now

#positivespin

57 - 7 now! We're going to need every bit of Dernbach and Virdi's new found prowess with the bat!

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:

Afro wrote:

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:Surrey win the toss, bat and collapse to 41 -4.  We've had a few of these through the season.  Usually someone bails us out. Will this finally be the occasion when that doesn't happen.

48 - 5 now!

Winning by an innings is going to be even more impressive now

#positivespin

57 - 7 now!  We're going to need every bit of Dernbach and Virdi's new found prowess with the bat!

Are the ECB pitch inspectors on their way to The Oval now?

67 all out ...

Thats less than both Popes and Burns' averages (pre this game!) for the season ..and only marginaly more than Roys (ok he only played one game)

guildfordbat wrote:Cheers, JimBob. You've had another fine season.

Pleased to see the Club edited their earlier article to make clear who is in the squad. As you say, no Batty. Seems a bit tough on him but I suspect he's content now to concentrate on coaching and playing in just the white ball games. It would have been rough on Virdi though to bench him and we can't really justify playing 2 off spinners at the end of September. I reckon all the squad will get some form of medal from the Club even if not an official ECB Championship medal.

As you suggest, the team here looks a player short. Either the tail starts at 8 or we play Patel as a front line bowler and one of the seam quartet.

I'm going along tomorrow. Got to make up for missing the 2 previous home matches and Olly!

PS JimBob - you going to say who you would have voted for on the other thread? Don't be shy!

i'm saving it for after this performance

As the scoreboard obviously shows, a very poor day for Surrey.

Credit to Essex though. Their trio of seamers bowled extremely well - nippy and accurate (Porter was quicker than I expected and got noticeable lift at times) whilst Vijay and Westley batted exactly as required - patient much of the time but ruthless when an ordinary ball came along.

Tbf, the pitch eased as the day went on and warmed up but we folded all too readily and failed to show the resolve needed to benefit from the improved conditions. We really missed Elgar - not the most stylish of batsmen but someone who values his wicket and is prepared to scrap for it. By contrast, Dernbach's innings was shameful. I don't expect style from him but an ounce of sense would have been nice. He only had one role - ''Stay with Ollie'', an England Test batsman who had already seen 6 wickets fall during his time at the crease. Instead, Dernbach tried to hit Porter out of the ground and immediately lost his middle stump. Stupid.

Bowling wise, we looked a seamer light as I feared might be the case last night. On a decent batting track as this became, Patel was too samey and lacking in pace to be much of a threat. Meanwhile, the others were increasingly starting to look as if this was one game too many - I guess it was!

PS Just for the day, beer was £2 a pint, the same price as in 2002 when we last won the Championship. A good gesture by the Club and one I showed my appreciation of.

Maybe thats why theyve been so bad guilford

Finally our batting comes good! Vijay has been a good signing, still don't understand why Chopra dosen't get a look in, in red ball though, particuarly given how bad a season Browne has had..

start the rain dance

Pope and Roy in the runs

Surrey will very probably still lose this one, but great to see them putting up good resistance with a 450+ score. Sounds like some entertaining batting today from Surrey's secular and religious leaders - Roy and Pope.

Very handy partnership of 59* so far by Jacks and Patel - two batsmen trying to establish their place in the side. Jacks' score of 52* is his maiden first class half century. Realistically, Surrey's chance of saving or even winning the match is probably no higher than 5% but after that awful first couple of days they have shown that they are not going to give up their unbeaten record without a fight.

If Surrey make it to halfway through the afternoon session tomorrow we could have an interesting chase on our hands...!

But - that will be a tough task. 5 wickets left, small lead and facing a newish ball at 10:30am on a september morning. Essex still heavy favourites

Getting very interesting... Essex 59-5

You'd still make Essex favourites - but if Surrey can get another couple quickly it gets really interesting

Think Burns has got this wrong - bowling Virdi round the wicket to the right handers, with a short leg side boundary - just a nurdle and it's going for four.

Listening to commentary on R5sports extra...a truly astonishing performance from Surrey to get this close to winning....they may just fall short..but what a turn around....

Essex need 21 runs with 2 wickets left....

8 to win....I wicket left ...

I really don't know how we are throwing this away, shambolic batting again :/

2 to win...Quinn hit on head...drama

Second best finish to a game this season

Well done Essex...fantastic fight back from Surrey. And almost got that world record...shame we couldn’t finish unbeaten. Nonetheless what a season for us!

Cricket is a ridiculously brilliant sport. What a game

Corporal for the final time this season and as champions open the bar

What a finale to the season! Every other tight finish or difficult situation during the cc campaign we've somehow found a way through. But not this final time. Oh well.

Cheers all the Surrey faithful on this site - and also many thanks to those other generous posters who have paid tribute to what Surrey staff and players have got right this year.