Back to proper cricket - Surrey vs Gloucestershire CC Div 2

First topic message reminder :

So the Championship returns (briefly) inbetween this T20 season and the squad has been named. Clive keeps his place after his excellent debut and Ansari earns himself a place. To the delight of most if us (especially depressed) Schofield is nowhere to be seen, unfortunately neither is Meaker which is a real shame, his injury must have been quite bad. Ansari surely will be the one to miss out. Dernbach, Linley, Dunn and Arafat as a seam bowling unit is pretty decent.

Rory Hamilton-Brown (Captain)
Jason Roy
Mark Ramprakash
Zander de Bruyn
Steven Davies (Wicket Keeper)
Tom Maynard
Gareth Batty
Zafar Ansari
Yasir Arafat
Tim Linley
Jade Dernbach
Matthew Dunn

Run out! That'll help.

Now the Brain gets his third wicket!1 left to get and they are only 17 ahead....

Lewis hits 2 fours straight away, I'd like to see Dernbach on with his T20 bowling to get rid of him if he's slogging.

Dernbach gets Lewis with a slower ball, I like being right! Lead of 36 is better than I thought it would be at 150/3.

I'll settle for that - Arafat in the team for his fielding then!

Going at 20 an over after the first three balls 8)

14 off the 1st over!

Roy didn't last long

Hyphen has calmed down now Ramps is there - let's see if our captain can play the responsible innings we all know he's capable of!

Runs are so hard to come with that if you stick it out for ages and only get a few you'll eventually get a good ball and get out anyway, need to try and be positive without being silly.

That's obviously not Hyphens game - 2 down and we're not even in the lead! Need our next 4 batsmen to knuckle down now!

45-3 at tea effectively............this could be over quite early tomorrow!

afternoon chaps

that was a massive blow de bruyn out in the last over before tea

Hi Jimbob

It sure was - means we only really have Davies and Maynard to come - hopefully one (or both) can forge a match winning stand with Ramps.............but I have my doubts!

who knows what sort of lead we need on this wicket? oh well it makes a change from the flat ones we had other the years

davies out 123 for 4 a lead of 87

50 for ramps the lead up to 100

wine gums out for a duck

101 lead 5 wkts left this is looking bad

off for bad light 145 for 5, only 109 ahead

tell you what, this Ramprakash guys looks alright doesn't he...?

As for the others, the less said the better.

To the tune of "One Ton of Mera": (possible mispelling there...)

"There's only one Batty playing, one Batty playing"

Hooray for that, and so say all of us here in Gloucs.
Although maybe that's a different tune.

PS No idea who's going to win.

I'd say you're definite favourites Chris, although if we can scrape up to a lead of 200 I think we can push you quite close. A lot depends on conditions, if it is overcast again we have more chance. Ideally it will be sunny while we bat and cloud over for you lot!

As for our batting, this is the exact pitch/conditions that show up our makeshift openers and I do feel sorry for them. For me I wouldn't mind sticking Roy at 6 and putting Harinath in to open in place of Maynard with his temperament and application. He scored 40* today batting lower down the order when the rest of the seconds collapsed around him. Brown still appears to be hopelessly out of nick which is a massive shame as we could do with his solidarity at the top of the innings.

just seen the surrey website headlines surrey fight back

Following up on the PS from Chris, either side could still win. However, as last night, we remain behind against a team we should be beating comfortably if promotion is to be a realistic target.

As so often, Ramps has at least kept us in contention with his second innings knock. Very poor from the other batters. Dreadful game for Maynard - almost as many dropped catches as runs! I suppose he's entitled to a fall after a pretty good start but I still wonder about his signing.

Decent efforts today by the Viscount, the Brain and Dernbach earlier with the ball. By all accounts, Arafat bowled much better today but with no luck. Dunn was only given 5 overs - Derbys must seem a long time ago to him! If he gets a bowl tomorrow, he'll neeed to be on the money from the start or it'll be back to peeling spuds and marching in the parade ground under the Corporal's supervision.

Dunn still got to bowl 4 more overs than Batty. He's certainly got an important part to play in the remainder of this match with both bat and ball. I'll go so far as to say that how he does may shape the rest of his and our CC season ....

To those in the prediction business:
Remember T20 Kent v Middx a few days ago: Kent 21-6 and went on to win.
As Danny Baker warns, "nothing can possibly go wrong now..." is a very dangerous utterance. And certainly not one often used by us in the West Country.

This is indeed true. I am a lot happier and more confident with our bowling than I have been in the past. Hopefully Dernbach and Viscount will share the new ball and make inroads with Clive and Arafat coming on to good effect a bit later on. Batty's contribution I fear will purely be with the bat but with any luck he'll get some runs in the morning along with Ramps. Quite glad I'm at work tomorrow so I'll only be able to check very infrequently on the scores - I'll just be able to see the joy/despair at the end of the day when I'm home!

jimbobgooner wrote:just seen the surrey website headlines surrey fight back

Jimbob - that headline really is a classic

Hope you do some more "fighting back" tomorrow!

Bet you do, Chris! All the best for tomorrow, may the best team win!

That'll be neither of us then...

Batty out for 23, better than most of the 'batsmen' ahead of him, but not enough I fear. Need Arafat to hang about with Ramps to get us above a 200 lead..........if indeed Arafat does hanging about!

Ramps gone now! and the game as well I reckon
151 ahead - not enough!

Make that 151-8..........It's an absolute certainty that Saxelby will get his best bowling against us!

and there's Saxelby best ever bowling figures and ten in the match for him

160 for Gloucestershire to win

Well fought! .... especially near the end.

Disgraceful effort, apart from Ramps............and extras!
Linley and Arafat(?) opening the bowling?! Surely Arafat has got to produce in this innings or his place has gone

Chris I hope your not being sarcy

Just trying to help your website headline writers.

After you win by 10 wickets it'll be something like "glouc edge closely fought contest"

What is this "win by 10 wickets" result of which you speak?
Is it a London thing??

ChrisfromStroud wrote:Just trying to help your website headline writers.

ok chris fair enough i dont want to come to blows

Down in the West Country, we often have a result known as "Gloucs, needing only xxx to win, collapsed from yy for 3 to zzz all out".
Maybe today will be different.

two wickets in two balls for Arafat!

If this is his response to our belittling of him, let the abuse continue!

'caught Maynard'.............surely some mistake?!!

thegooch7 wrote:'caught Maynard'.............surely some mistake?!!

and one handed as well

He's is usually a decent fielder to be honest - he's just had a nightmare in this match................oooooooh 4 down now!!

yep taylor gloves arafat down the legside an acrobatic davies pouches it 43 for 4