SURREY VS KENT LV= COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP DIVISION ONE 2023

Surrey have named a 14 man squad for the LV=Insurance County Championship game at home to Kent starting on Thursday 18th may at the kia oval.
Sadly Kemar Roach has returned to Barbados to deal with a family matter hence his time at surrey has come to a end for the time being.
Conor McKerr is named in a squad for the first time this season.
Ollie pope returns to the squad after being rested by England last week
Again there is no place in the squad for Ben Geddes, Dan Moriarty or Amir Virdi
FULL SQUAD:
Rory Burns (c)
Sean Abbott
Gus Atkinson
Jordan Clark
Ben Foakes
Will Jacks
Tom Lawes
Conor McKerr
Ryan Patel
Ollie pope
Dom Sibley
Jamie Smith
Cam Steel
Dan Worrall
Pope will must likely come in for Patel and Lawes in for Roach, which would mean McKerr, patel and Steel on drink duties
maybe we might choose the extra batsman so Patel gets another chance and Lawes misses out again.
Over to you chaps

Cheers, JimBob.

Yeah, as you say, most likely that Pope and Lawes come in for Patel and Roach respectively. With Roach - arguably the best and most experienced bowler - missing, I doubt we'll choose the extra batsman.

All assuming that everyone is ok to play. Foakes was said to be pretty cut up yesterday after being given the chop by England.

McKerr played 2 CC games on loan to Kent earlier this season but I don't reckon any inside info he picked up will swing him a place.

Going Friday.

Cheers Jimbob
Obviously Pope comes in but I think Patel or Steel will play ahead of Lawes, both, to a degree, can bowl a bit. We've got 4 front line-ish medium pace bowlers, and although we'll certainly miss Roach, the form of Atkinson could compensate for that, and he should at least get a bowl earlier than 5th change now

Team as predicated
Surrey win toss and bowl

Crawley edges to slip

jimbobgooner wrote:Team as predicated
Surrey win toss and bowl

Thought the decision to bowl first smacked of over confidence but it's worked well so far. Kent 30/2 a few minutes ago with both openers back in the hutch. One each for Worrall - lovely inswinger to bowl Compton although still a dreadful leave - and Clark - a sharp lifter to Crawley well taken by Jacks to his left at slip [if he'd shelled it, Olly would have said he should have left it for Pope and been right but we'll let that go   ].

80-4 now, wickets for Atkinson and Lawes. Chance in this final half hour before lunch to really break the back of this Kent innings

Leaning faced two balls after lunch - first one hit him in his gentlemans areas, out next ball.

Probably had better afternoon sessions

The last wkt

Well good news is the pitch certainly seems to have got better for batting

The bad news is Kent are the ones still batting

278 all out

Surrey 88/1 at the close in reply to Kent's 278 all out.

Imo, our day although not nearly as much as it should have been given the hop county were 196/9 and before that 118/7. Particularly frustrating last wicket stand of 92 in 14 overs between Evison and Hogan. 

Number 11 Hulk Hogan seems to like Surrey - I remember him smashing sixes into Woodbridge Road at Guildford for Glamorgan a few years ago.

(Still too early) Kent review: just build the whole team out of club cricketers!

Very poor from Surrey with the bat needing the tail to wag again to give us a lead.

Another excellent knock from Abbot, ably supported by the fast improving Atkinson, and then Lawes with 2 wickets has put us on top right at the end

What a superb end to the day that was, and we're now right on top in this match with Kent trailing by 4 and only 6 wickets in the hutch - always good to remove the nightwatchman and get to go fresh at a new bat in the morning too.

Yep, strong ending to the day by Surrey. Extremely valuable catch by Virdi to open the door for 2 more wickets by the close.
Don’t think we’ve been at our best in this game and have lacked application (see Pope’s dismissal) but our all round strength and determination (batting of Abbott and Atkinson) appears to be taking us home.

Elsewhere TC and Overton both played for the stiffs yesterday in the T20 defeat to Sussex, both were playing as batsmen only.

The kindest I can be to Billings is he’s dreadfully out of form.

Tom Lawes is on

Frankie Worrall is unlikely to ever bowl better without taking a wicket. Constantly challenging the batsmen.

Surrey coming up roses again.....stick that in your garden of England! Just when it all looks level, someone comes to the party for Surrey, Abbott and then Atkinson batting yesterday, and Lawes bowling to give us a rather flattering 10 wicket victory.... absolutely brilliant though!

The bar is open

Kent had some opportunities yesterday to be on an equal footing, if not slightly ahead, but couldn't take them and imploded today against a Surrey seam attack with Lawes taking top billing. Getting the necessary runs after that was a piece of cake with the hop county more concerned about catching up with the over rate for the match than grabbing wickets.

Currently top of the table and deservedly so but no one has ever won the County Championship in May. We need to keep that in mind and not get ahead of ourselves.

I'm now off on hols and so you'll be spared me for 2 weeks. Good to have the likes of Alfie, Duty, JDizzle, etc chipping in as well if they can. Cheers for now.