SURREY VS LANCASHIRE LV= COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP DIVISION ONE 2023

The champions are back  
Surrey have named their squad for the first game of the 2023 LV=Insurance County Championship season against Lancashire on Thursday 6 April.
Rory Burns will lead Surrey’s defence of the 2022 crown and Ben Foakes and Ollie Pope have travelled to Manchester after their winter away with England. Overseas players Kemar Roach and Sean Abbott are available and new signing Dom Sibley is back wearing the Three Feathers.
Sam Curran, Chris Jordan, Jason Roy and Reece Topley are all at the IPL.
Tom Curran (stress fracture) Will Jacks (thigh) and Jamie Overton also (stress fracture) will be unavailable for the foreseeable future  
There is no place in the squad for Conor McKerr, James Taylor or Amir Virdi
The match is live on Sky Sports Cricket
FULL SQUAD:
Rory Burns (C)
Sean Abbott
Gus Atkinson
Jordan Clark
Ben Foakes
Ben Geddes
Tom Lawes
Dan Moriarty
Ryan Patel
Ollie Pope
Kemar Roach
Dom Sibley
Jamie Smith
Cam Steel
Dan Worrall
Tough one to call straight up so I will go for Atkinson, Geddes, Moriarty and Steel to miss out ,hard to see a reason to play a spinner at this time of the year but they might go with Steel his batting over Lawes.
Over to you chaps  

And great to have you back, JimBob.

Agree with you on the Surrey eleven for the reasons given.

No Anderson for Lancs although I believe C deG makes his debut for them - an astute signing.

Saqib Mahmood also misses out on this match along with Anderson. The Lancs official site refers to them ''continuing to build up fitness'' which I interpret as being ordered to rest by England.

That's good news for Surrey over the next 4 days but ultimately very disappointing for all. Spectators at the ground and those watching on Sky (or also Lancs tv apparently if you can locate that not having Sky) should be paying to see the best players, not stand ins. Furthermore, if batsmen like Burns and Sibley are to mount a case for an England recall it needs to be against top quality bowlers.

Lancashire win toss and bowl
Atkinson, Geddes, lawes and moriarty on drink duties

Welcome back fellas - fingers crossed for a repeat season!

Hi all, excited for the new season!

Disappointed to see Steel play ahead of Atkinson/Moriarty but makes sense and hopefully he can prove me wrong.

James100 wrote:Hi all, excited for the new season!

Disappointed to see Steel play ahead of Atkinson/Moriarty but makes sense and hopefully he can prove me wrong.

Years ago I remember hearing Alec Stewart talk about (keep reading, Olly, I've not told this one too often before - you'll be doing well if it's on your bingo card) ''the importance of the balance'' that Zafar Ansari brought to the Surrey side batting at number 7 and bowling spin.

Some of Surrey's success last year was owed to Will Jacks playing a not totally dissimilar role at or around 7 albeit he's a far more destructive batsman than Ansari could ever dream of and atm a lesser bowler.

I'm therefore not amazed that Stewart & Batty have gone with Steel in Jacks' absence. The issue for me though, like James and others I strongly suspect, is whether he's actually good enough. If he genuinely brings ''balance'' that's great but the potential danger is that he'll just weaken the side by not making runs and going wicketless for a few expensive overs.

Anyway, again like James, I hope Steel proves me wrong. Atm though, it's seam on top as I expected (that's why I unusually went for a 5th seamer in Lawes instead of Steel for ''my team'' - it also helps that Lawes has potential with the bat) with Lancs making the most of the conditions to have us 62/3. Sibley hanging in there on 30 and Foakes on 9. Bizarrely, being said on Sky, that Foakes has a borrowed bat as he left his bats on the team bus which moved off and couldn't be located!

shocking from sky who lazily use the Lancashire stream to show the game

James100 wrote:Hi all, excited for the new season!

Disappointed to see Steel play ahead of Atkinson/Moriarty but makes sense and hopefully he can prove me wrong.

Steel must have seen your post

Tremendous turnaround from after lunch with Steel going a long way to proving us all wrong.

JimBob - I'm sure you won't be happy with the new points system. 340 scored in the day by Surrey and we only have a measly 2 points so far. Should get a third in the morning but 400 off 110 overs for 4 points seems a step too far.

Fantastic stuff from Steel, did anyone watch and see if there were any technical changes since last year?

James100 wrote:Fantastic stuff from Steel, did anyone watch and see if there were any technical changes since last year?

sadly not james the stream is not the best

Hey guys, it’s been a while! This place is still going then!?

Carrotdude wrote:Hey guys, it’s been a while! This place is still going then!?

Hiya Carrot - yeah, we're still hanging in there. Hope you're back for a good while.

Haven't seen any of this game since yesterday lunchtime but hope to make up for some of that tomorrow. We're currently very well placed despite Lancs having the better of the batting conditions. Really liked our last 3 wickets putting on 160+ runs. It always used to be the opposition doing that to us back in the day, eh Carrot?

Haha yeah the good old days! Now I’ve rediscovered this place and found my password I should be around for the season. Pleased with the start, probably not going to top last season though!

100 for Foakes

Surrey set Lancashire a total of 444 to win

jimbobgooner wrote:

James100 wrote:Fantastic stuff from Steel, did anyone watch and see if there were any technical changes since last year?

sadly not james the stream is not the best

Strange ? I happened to watch a little of this one the other night (new experience : CC cricket easily available live even here in Australia !) and I thought the picture was better than I sometimes get on the telly !

Maybe it varied ; I wasn't on for that long. In any case , I am grateful for this ECB streaming thingy they (unsolicited offer !) have given me at no cost - might come in handy when I can't sleep and no Tests are on.

You Surrey chaps look to be well placed too start with a win here , eh ? And Foakes hasn't done his case to not be the fall-guy for a YJB return to the Test side any harm at all ...

alfie wrote:

jimbobgooner wrote:

James100 wrote:Fantastic stuff from Steel, did anyone watch and see if there were any technical changes since last year?

sadly not james the stream is not the best

Strange ? I happened to watch a little of this one the other night (new experience : CC cricket easily available live even here in Australia !) and I thought the picture was better than I sometimes get on the telly !

Maybe it varied ; I wasn't on for that long. In any case , I am grateful for this ECB streaming thingy they (unsolicited offer !) have given me at no cost - might come in handy when I can't sleep and no Tests are on.

You Surrey chaps look to be well placed too start with a win here , eh ?  And Foakes hasn't done his case to not be the fall-guy for a YJB return to the Test side any harm at all ...

Glad you're able to get a fix of our 4 day stuff, Alfie. 

County streams have certainly improved enormously over the last 3 or 4 years although they lack the Sky gizmos that some of us too readily take for granted and have come to expect. The commentators for county streams are also a mixed bunch (Don Topley would win Olympic medals for boredom) whilst disappointingly for this game the Sky commentators don't seem to have done much homework on the players outside the bigger names.

Flak coming Surrey's way from some of their supporters for declaring too late. I don't share that view and feel we judged things about right. If we had got a wicket last night, let alone two, it would have seemed a perfect declaration. As so often - ifs, buts and maybes!  

I would though have stuck will all seam last night rather than going to Steel so early. I think we kidded ourselves that he'll turn it around corners just because Parkinson ended up with a fivefer. Steel is little more than an occasional bowler whist our four seamers are all decent to high quality. As for Parkinson, I don't think I'll ever see a worse fivefer! So slow and leg side with the batsmen gifting him wickets. Definitely a long way from being in the mix for my Test side.

Anyway, almost 40 minutes played this morning. Not many runs added but no wickets taken. The draw looking increasingly likely .... although you never know.

yep draw it is

jimbobgooner wrote:yep draw it is

Draw totally confirmed with Burns and Pope bowling.

Before lunch Bohannon was dropped by Pope at slip off Abbott when on about 2. Sliding doors moment?