surrey vs Northamptonshire county Championship division 2

First topic message reminder :

Chris Adams has named a thirteen man Surrey squad to take on Northamptonshire at Wantage Road in the LV= County Championship.
George Edwards replaces Matthew Dunn who is suffering with shin soreness in the only change to the squad that defeated Leicestershire last week at Grace Road.
The full Surrey squad to play Northamptonshire is:
Rory Hamilton-Brown (Captain)
Steven Davies (Wicket Keeper)
Mark Ramprakash
Zander de Bruyn
Tom Maynard
Jason Roy
Gareth Batty
Chris Jordan
Zafar Ansari
Tim Linley
Stuart Meaker
Pragyan Ojha
George Edwards
river should not even be in the squad in my opion
as for the last spot zaffer for me edges out (edwards) whom i'm sure guildford can tell us all about

4-5 in half a dozen overs - that's a Surrey-esque collapse!!

did I just hear "Maynard at slip" from Churchy?



Possibly our worst catcher...

Carrotdude wrote:Once again the batting lets us down. Davies did well but needed to push on, Ramps and Roy big culprits for once again getting to 30 and out, Batty etc. can't be blamed as they can't be expected to get us out of trouble.

Carrot - no disagreement between us on this but to put a different slant on matters.

Your comment reminds me of the sort of remark often made by Michael Holding:

''It is the job of the bowlers to take wickets. It is not the job of the bowlers to score runs. That is the job of the batsmen.''

Now, far be it from me, a long retired occasional club cricketer, to disagree with one of the game's true greats - so I won't! However, I would add that it's a lot easier to stick to Mikey's job descriptions when you have Greenidge, Haynes and Richards in your top three and Roberts, Garner and Marshall all jossling with Holding for the new ball!

I don't particularly blame our tail and certainly agree that it is not right to expect them to get us out of trouble. However, I would still like to see some more fight and runs from them. For an English county side scrapping to get promotion from Division Two (and that is what we are at best rather than being comparable to Holding's West Indian greats*), everyone needs to be looking to chip in with at least a few runs every now and then.

Compare and contrast our tail with that of Northants.

Most of this season Northants have had four of the following batting between numbers eight and eleven: Middlebrook, Vaas, Daggett, Lucas and Brooks. Their respective averages are 49, 29, 23.5, 23.5 and 19.

Although we've varied our bowling line up a bit more, we've often had at least four of the following in our tail: Batty, Arafat, Jordan, Dernbach, Linley and Meaker. The respective averages here are 29, 28, 12, 7, 5 and 4.5.

With one or two honourable exceptions, our ''real'' batsmen and bowlers have not fully and consistently performed their day jobs this season. That is the main reason why we will almost certainly miss out on promotion and I'm sure we're at one on that. However, with more runs from the tail we would have almost certainly got more bonus points and might have got that bit closer.

* Carrot - hope you don't find the comparison unfair; I made it, not you. I just thought it fitted and, in any case, just love Mikey's accent!

What's going on?

I pop out for half an hour, come back, send a post for Carrot saying we've no chance of promotion and then find out Meaker's got a fivefer?

guildfordbat wrote:'Fraid I agree, Goochie.

We just seem to be waiting for something to happen. Having got this far up the slippery pole of Division Two, Northants won't let things go now without a fight. Can't see us doing it.

Going out for a bit now. Hope I see more wickets upon my return than you did ....

Putting any self modesty aside, I would like to nominate myself as man of the match for jinxing Northants and getting 5 wickets in under an hour!

Viscount finishes them off - what's up with 'Martin' Peters then?!
A lead...........yes I'll repeat that...........a lead of 75 with over 7 sessions left!!

[quote="guildfordbat"]

Carrotdude wrote:Once again the batting lets us down. Davies did well but needed to push on, Ramps and Roy big culprits for once again getting to 30 and out, Batty etc. can't be blamed as they can't be expected to get us out of trouble.

''It is the job of the bowlers to take wickets. It is not the job of the bowlers to score runs. That is the job of the batsmen.''
does anyone know what the job of river is then?

Hi Goochie - I think ''Martin'' turned an ankle yesterday. An appropriate injury given the name ....

Meanwhile, the Viscount has moved on to 61 first class wickets this season (and still counting) and 99 in his career ....

[quote="jimbobgooner"]

guildfordbat wrote:

Carrotdude wrote:Once again the batting lets us down. Davies did well but needed to push on, Ramps and Roy big culprits for once again getting to 30 and out, Batty etc. can't be blamed as they can't be expected to get us out of trouble.

''It is the job of the bowlers to take wickets. It is not the job of the bowlers to score runs. That is the job of the batsmen.''
does anyone know what the job of river is then?

Cruel Jimbob, cruel...................but funny!

ChrisfromStroud wrote:Middx 500 - 2 dec
Leics 200 - 10
I think the rest of us might as well give up.

Glad to see that Surrey have given up...

Cheers for that Guildford, any more performances like todays and I think you'll be pushing Viscount for player of the season!

Meaker with those 5 wkts might just have played himself in to the semi final

has anyone just seeen the lanachsire game, worcester won by 10 wickets!

Rory gone early again...

cricketfan90 wrote:has anyone just seeen the lanachsire game, worcester won by 10 wickets!

Lancs doing there best to chuck it away - and they can't blame the weather this time!

Hants gone from 373/1 to 395/4

Hyphen doesn't seem to be able to get his head down when it's needed. Don't want him to stop his natural instincts but it's hardly the example a captain should be setting!

he's young it will come with experience

jimbohammers wrote:Hants gone from 373/1 to 395/4

Still full bonus points and a +200 lead Jimbo

Tough one next week against Lancs...............or is it after todays result?!

Jimbohammers - very pleased to see former Surrey player Michael Carberry back in the runs and, I presume and hope, good health

Right, I'm off now, let's hope it's a serene final hour and no more wickets.............Guildford - you stay put!!

100 up

ramps out in the 30,s yet again

viscount in as night watchman

viscount out as well now

Carberry gone for 182, another fine knock!

Jimmy Adams brings up his 200

And Sean Ervine gets 50

472-4 with a lead of 268

Going well for you guys as well i see bowling Northants for less than 200

jimbohammers wrote:Carberry gone for 182, another fine knock!

Jimmy Adams brings up his 200

And Sean Ervine gets 50

472-4 with a lead of 268

Going well for you guys as well i see bowling Northants for less than 200

it was jimbo just having a little wobble before stumps.

and that's stumps 115 for 3 a lead of 190 yet again a shame to lose 2 wkts with only 6 overs left in the day.

One of them is a tail-ender though

jimbobgooner wrote:and that's stumps 115 for 3 a lead of 190 yet again a shame to lose 2 wkts with only 6 overs left in the day.

Agreed, I've never been a fan of the nightwatchman.

However, we're still in a very good position and far better than might have been realistically hoped for mid way through the afternoon session. Congratulations to Stuart Meaker for an excellent performance and return. For once the Viscount had to play the bridesmaid rather than the bride but still chipped in with a couple of wickets (61 this season and counting, 99 career wickets).

We just need to bat sensibly in the morning and continue to build our lead. Hopefully Ojha can come to the party late tomorrow and Saturday. Churchy said Middlebrook was already getting turn tonight.

Well well well! I don't think anyone expected that! Stuart Meaker has really come to the party just when we needed it and that is excellent news, when he gets it right he is very very good. We are in a good position but we need runs from all of Davies, Brain, Wine Gums and Roy tomorrow as apart from Batty we have no batting after that! First target is a 300 lead and then go from there.

guildford - I agree with pretty much all of your post above but the only thing I would say is that some bowlers just can't bat, and never will. You have to pick your best bowlers and unfortunately for us in this game 3 of them cannot bat at all and Rover Jordan is struggling to do either discipline at the moment! It's a bit like England fielding Anderson, Finn, Panesar and Onions as a 4 man attack - if they are the best available for that particular game then you go with it and trust your batsmen to do their job. Obviously in an ideal world you have people like Broad and Bresnan who are good batsmen but imo it's not a must.

Oh and just a thought - maybe we should start having threads for each round of championship games as a general thread rather than one just for our games?

If we win this match, what's the situation regarding possible promotion?

Just like to remind you all that after 2 days, Gloucs are about 300 - 2 in reply to Glamorgan's 400 - 10.
We're snapping your heels.

jbd349 wrote:If we win this match, what's the situation regarding possible promotion?

IF (massive ''if'') we win this match plus our last two (Essex away, Derbys at the Oval) and Northants fail to beat Gloucs in their final game, we'll get to Adams' promised land of Division One!

ChrisfromStroud wrote:Just like to remind you all that after 2 days, Gloucs are about 300 - 2 in reply to Glamorgan's 400 - 10.
We're snapping your heels.

Yes but Stewie Walters somehow missed out in Glamorgan's first innings. No way that will happen second time round ....

guildfordbat wrote:

jbd349 wrote:If we win this match, what's the situation regarding possible promotion?

IF (massive ''if'') we win this match plus our last two (Essex away, Derbys at the Oval) and Northants fail to beat Gloucs in their final game, we'll get to Adams' promised land of Division One!

Well, at least we should be able to get promotion next year, if our performances continue their upward curve

Does anyone know who wrote the article about ramps in the times today because he's not happy about it that's for sure.

Carrot - exactly right in saying Meaker has come to the party. A very fine effort. It changes everything if we have several bowlers reasonably likely to take wickets. Let's hope this restores him to the performance levels at the start of the season.

I still feel queasy about our batting tomorrow morning. Will we crumble leaving Northants 250 to win....

I just saw that too Jimbob, no idea but I'd hazard a guess it's someone having a pop at his form this season and saying he's past it or something. He's not been great, that's for sure but he most certainly hasn't been our worst performer. I think we just now know that we can't necessarily rely on him to score massive hundreds every week anymore.

guildfordbat wrote:

jbd349 wrote:If we win this match, what's the situation regarding possible promotion?

IF (massive ''if'') we win this match plus our last two (Essex away, Derbys at the Oval) and Northants fail to beat Gloucs in their final game, we'll get to Adams' promised land of Division One!

You mean Surrey's chance of promotion depends on Gloucs?
Who would have thought it would end this way.

There's no way we'll go up IMO but at least there has been a definite progression this season in the CC which bodes well for next season. We need the likes of Harinath, Dunn and Edwards to do well when called upon. I wonder if Surrey might be eyeing up a cheeky move for James Taylor who is widely believed to be leaving Leics at the end of the season, seems like the kind of thing we'd do.

ChrisfromStroud wrote:

You mean Surrey's chance of promotion depends on Gloucs?
Who would have thought it would end this way.

If it comes to that I'm sure you'll do the necessary.

i think surrey are slowly progressing, but its gonna take a while for silverware, with a new and inexperienced captain..

If we win this game we'll be 23 points off Northants with a game in hand
assuming Middlesex win we'll be 25 points off them on the same games
I hope we do win and are chasing a promotion place over the next 2 games, BUT I actually don't want us to go up this season. I think we need to improve in this Div and iron out the inconsistencies first.

Morning Goochie - Middlesex also have another ''banker'' game coming up against Leics. Unless the weather intervenes or Hoggy's boys turn the formbook completely upside down, that's max points again for them. That's why I think if we're going to catch anyone, it has to be Northants.

I understand your point about our not being ready for promotion but thought you, as a West Ham fan, would want to take it whenever the opportunity arose ....

Nice little clatter of boundaries to start Surrey off this morning!
Morning Guildford - Up until a couple of games ago I thought it was 3 up and 3 down!
Although there probably isn't that much difference in Div 1 and 2 I'd hate for us to go back to those hammerings we regularly took 2/3 seasons ago - it could knock the confidence and progression we've seen in some of the younger players (River excluded!) and I'm quite enjoying us being competative in this Division
To a degree in footy when you do get promotion you can virtually buy a whole new team..............something BS is currently doing at West Ham!

150 up, no wickets down this morning. A lead of 225. Good stuff.

I would be delighted to set Northants 400 but would still be happy if they had to get 350 ....

Hopefully, not another jinx!

If we bat til tea we should be 400+ ahead - only thing is, in recent games our tail starts with Wine Gums...........next in!

For your amusement:
Overnight, Gloucs 278-2.
To quote the overnight county website:Gloucestershire look on course for a decent first-innings advantage
This morning:
289-3, 289-4, 302-5, 302-6, 306-7.
Still 54 behind...
I don't think it would matter to us if it were 4 up / 4 down.
I'm beginning to come around to your "it would be better for us if we stayed in division 2" way of reconciling disappointment.

100 partnership. If there was a Dr here I think he would've ordered that!

Fat Lady not quite ready to sing for us yet Chris...........but I genuinely meant it about staying in this Div.................obviously even more so if we don't get promoted