SURREY VS WARWICKSHIRE SPECSAVERS COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP

SURREY HAVE NAMED A 14 MAN SQUAD FOR THE SPECSAVERS COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP GAME AGAINST WARWICKSHIRE AT EDGBASTON STARTING ON SATURDAY.
Kumar Sangakkara returns to the squad after playing in the recent Caribbean Premier League and winning the competition with the Jamaica Tallawahs. Gary Wilson and Arun Harinath are both named in the squad.
There is no place in the squad for Ravioli
The Surrey squad to play Warwickshire at Edgbaston on Saturday 13th August, Sunday 14th August, Monday 15th August and Tuesday 16th August :
Gareth Batty (capt)
Zafar Ansari
Rory Burns
Sam Curran
Tom Curran
Steven Davies
Ben Foakes
Mark Footitt
Arun Harinath
Stuart Meaker
Jason Roy
Kumar Sangakkara
Dominic Sibley
Gary Wilson
So the question is will Footitt share drink duties with Harinath and Wilson?
Over to you chaps

Afternoon, JimBob.

No room in the squad then for Surrey's latest Test player - don't tell me you missed the Burger Van being on as twelfthie whilst Broad went off for an over and looked at his yucky toe?!

More seriously, I'm surprised about Harinath and Wilson being recalled to the squad. Is there any reason for that? Sibley failed both times at Lord's but scored 99 the time before at Hants - thought he would still be safe for this game at least. Please don't say there's some concern about Sanga!

Assuming all are fit on parade, I agree that Harinath and Wilson will be on drinks duties. Footitt most likely to be helping them although Meaker's place is not guaranteed.

Was gonna say I wouldn't be surprised to see Footitt replace Meaker but am expecting Sanga for Finch to be the only change from the Lords game

Ravioli has got lost trying to find his way out of the canteen I heard

Foakes is out injured

Footitt comes in for him, Davies takes the gloves and Surrey bat first

That goes a long way to explaining why Wilson was added to the squad even though he doesn't make the cut.

Hope Davies doesn't decide in the next couple of days that keeping isn't for him after all.

I guess the Foakes injury must have been why the extra players in the squad. Interesting that Davies takes the gloves rather than Wilson coming into the side. Has anyone seen Davies keep this year?

Morning James and all - I haven't seen Davies keep this year although, given my feelings about him, would probably not be a fair judge even if I had. I recall he did keep a bit a month or so ago when Foakes was taken ill during a CC match.

I've heard Alec Stewart speak very critically of the England selectors in his playing days ditching Jack Russell and giving him the keeper's gloves so as  to bring in an extra batsman - fully acknowledging Russell was the superior keeper, Stewie has said - ''We tried to solve a problem but only created another.''

Not exactly the same situation here but I wonder if we've been too keen to turn to Davies and ignore regular reserve Wilson.

Hope I'm wrong but don't have a good feeling about this game ....

Now there's a surprise - Surrey have won the toss again!    Interesting selection decision about wicket keeper.  Well, we've certainly got plenty of bowlers - which may come in handy as we often seem to spend a long time in the field against Warks. 

Will need all the batsmen to contribute.

Circumspect start 33 - 0 after 15 overs.

Slow and steady start - nothing wrong with that but important to hold onto our wickets with relatively few runs on the board. We don't want to be 60/2 at lunch.

guildfordbat wrote:Slow and steady start - nothing wrong with that but important to hold onto our wickets with relatively few runs on the board. We don't want to be 60/2 at lunch.

Indeed, we don't!  63 -1 - could be a lot worse. But we will need to build some substantial partnerships to get into a reasonable position.  Rory Burns still there on 26. Sounds like a decent knock from Sibley until his dismissal when well set.

Hmmm. Guess it could go either way from here but Warks have good form against us - Patel, Ronnie etc. Another important session coming up.

See that Surrey old boy Evans has been recalled to the Bears' team. He'll be looking to show Warks that he has a place in red ball cricket and us that we shouldn't have let him go.

Meanwhile, JimBob getting twitchy about us likely to miss out on some batting points ....

88 - 1 after 40 overs. Sanga is often a fluent starter, but he too seems to be having trouble getting going. Could of  course be a slow pitch.

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:88 - 1 after 40 overs. Sanga is often a fluent starter, but he too seems to be having trouble getting going. Could of  course be a slow pitch.

There again, he could just be trying to wind JimBob up about lost batting points!

afternoon chaps

Afternoon, JimBob.

110/1 off 49.

And we haven't had Ansari yet to slow that rate down!

50 for third degree

Who says cricket is boring

2nd wkt for Patel

This is painful stuff

Having ground his way to 50, we really needed Burns to go on. Currently 116/2. Lose another one now and Warks are bossing it.

Kumar hits a six

Afternoon Jimbob!  Some signs of the scoring rate perking up a little.  It's getting dangerously close to 2.5 an over.

Ansari's miserable form continues

Kumar goes next over

guildfordbat wrote:Having ground his way to 50, we really needed Burns to go on. Currently 116/2. Lose another one now and Warks are bossing it.

Warks are bossing it

I said it before and I'll say it again no spinner should ever get a wkt on the first day of a championship match. Let alone three

Remarkable figures for Patel: 14 overs, 3 wickets for 19.  Maybe it's a raging turner.  Or maybe we're just inept at batting against him!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Jeetan Patel is the best spinner in the county game. Part of the problem though, I'll grant you JimBob, is that he only has to look at our batsmen and they fall apart.

Lot now resting on Roy and the keeper.

1st batting point

Davies at least seems to be able to score of Patel. Brings up 50 partnership and 200 for first (painfully earned) batting point.  This partnership has at least found a bit of momentum.

Right on cue corporal

Roy falls to Clarke for a subdued 16. 202 - 5 and further batting points looking doubtful.  It would be very disappointing indeed if the innings now fizzles out.

...but it looks like it will as Davies follows in the next over.

Corporal you've done it again

Yet again game Lost on first day

Sorry guys, I see to have jinxed things rather badly today.  This match already looking horribly like our earlier cc match against Warks this season when we batted first for an indequate score, conceded a substantial first innings lead and were then skittled in the second innings....

Meanwhile, it's full bowling points for Notts and 3 batting points for Hants.  I'm saying nothing about the Currans batting.....

I knew we should have played harinath

This is just so disappointing after the last two games. If we get relegated, serves us right if the Curran brothers and Foakes move elsewhere to find a club cable of playing good cricket consistently.

Yes, I am seriously seriously p*ssex off!!!

Not an easy track for batting according to Church and Warks have a good bowling unit (spearheaded not for the first time today by Patel but see how all 5 bowlers chipped in). However, still mighty disappointing to go from 202/4 to 252 all out.

I accept no one tries to get out at any time (well unless they were about to face Sylvester - old timer's quip! ) but we really didn't need Davies pushing one up in the air immediately after Roy had gone and then leaving both the Curran boys to start an innings.

Did fear we were a batsman light as per earlier posts.

Certainly a disappointing day, but 252 is theoretically a defensible score, and we have a good bowling attack. As Guildford has said all season, we're being hurt by batters getting in and then not going on to a big score. We need Meaker to come to the party tomorrow after a rare off-match last time out.

Some major overreactions on here - day one lads chill. Yes 252 is not a great score, but its not a disaster either...and if Church is right the pitch should help what is a very strong bowling line up which we are fielding.

A note however - as everyone knows I am Zaf's biggest fan, but his batting in the CC this year has been nothing short of an abomination - very poor indeed

Olly is right. Certainly after the day's play Rory Burns was stressing there is quite a lot of help for the bowlers and they don't need to go searching for wickets but to bowl really accurately.  Of course conditions may have changed, but let's see how the bowlers get on. 

Tom Curran makes the first breakthrough (Chopra) and it's 18 - 1.

Here's a stat for Guildford.  Surrey website says we have won the toss 32 out of last 35 times.

Morning, Corporal - I had actually just seen that on the website (along with the post trying to get me to buy a Test match ticket for tomorrow! ) - that's an incredible stat. Just imagine if we could win 32 out of 35 games!

Wkt for Meaker

Warks just accelerating alarmingly when Meaker strikes second time to remove Westwood to leave match evenly poised with Warks 85 -3.  We haven't tried either of our spinners yet.

jimbobgooner wrote:Wkt for Meaker

The very valuable one of Trott to boot.

Meaks then goes for a couple of boundaries. That's the thing about him though - and following on from Simon's comments on day 4 at Lord's - he's not often going to send down half a dozen overs for 9 or 10 runs. He tends to make things happen - whether that's runs conceded,wickets taken or both!

Obviously encouraging to have taken two wickets at this stage but they're going at a better lick than we did and so, unless we get the remaining eight today, they'll probably have a lead of 50 or 60 by stumps. Bell really is a class above nearly all Div one batsmen - desperately need him back in the hutch. Not forgetting Ronnie who doesn't usually hold back in taking a liking to our bowlers.

Not out of it yet but definitely behind imo.