SURREY VS GLAMORGAN LV= COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP DIVISION 2

For the final time this year
Surrey have announced a squad of 14 for the LV= County Championship Division Two clash with Glamorgan starting on Tuesday 21st September at the Kia Oval.
Ollie Pope will captain Surrey for the first time Centrally contracted player Rory Burns continues to be rested by the ECB.
Ben Foakes could make his first appearance since suffering a hamstring injury in May, he has been cleared for this match by Club’s medical staff.
This match will be the last in Rikki Clarke’s distinguished professional career
Nicholas Kimber & Jamie Overton continue to work with the Club’s medical staff on their return from injury.
Tom Curran continues to be monitored by the ECB medical team and will miss this LV= County Championship game in order to aid his recovery from a knee injury that he has been managing for a period of time.
Sam Curran & Jason Roy are at the ongoing Indian Premier League and therefore unavailable for this match.
There is no place in the squad for Ben Geddes, Connor McKerr, Laurie Evans, Matt Dunn or Nico Reifer.
and sadly there is no farewell game for the legend Jade Dernbach
Full Squad:
Ollie Pope (C)
Hashim Amla
Gus Atkinson
Jordan Clark
Rikki Clarke
Ben Foakes
Will Jacks
Daniel Moriarty
Ryan Patel
Jamie Smith
Cameron Steel
James Taylor
Reece Topley
Amar Virdi
Probably Taylor, Virdi and Hopefully Steel to miss out (wishful thinking) if not maybe Atkinson
Even with the final squad of the season the club have got it all wrong yet again, the bowling attack all one paced.
The decision by the ECB to rest Burns again is beyond a joke now, wish the club could do something about it.
Glad that Foakes is back to strengthen the batting line up, would be nice to push Amla up to open but doubt it will happen.
Wonder how many of the players left out will leave after this game?
For the final time this year over to you chaps

Thanks, JimBob, and for all your efforts throughout another season.

With no real confidence, I'll say that Steel (hope so anyway), Atkinson and Taylor will miss out. My guess is that Surrey will have tried to produce a spinner's wicket and, if so, will want to try Moriarty and Virdi together.

Agree strongly with your annoyance about those who have been made unavailable.

My guess (another one!) is that the captaincy for this game has gone to Pope with half an eye on the future. If Burns stays with England and Pope doesn't make it at Test level (although I think he will), then Pope would be a leading candidate to take over at Surrey.

Glamorgan currently 194-1 - another poor display from our bowlers. I know I say it every year, but please can we get some decent bowlers in for next season!

yep feared the bowling attack was all one paced and so it has proved , you can understand why McKerr gets frustrated.
at least Steel isn't playing

238 for 2 at tea

Glamorgan reach stumps on 379 for 4
Yet again another bad day at the office

Poor. More later.

Went along today.

Lovely weather and good batting by Glamorgan were the pluses along with a couple of beers with friends. However, plenty of disappointments from Surrey.

The seam bowling was ordinary and, as JimBob suspected it would be, too samey and unthreatening. On a new day one track playing well and with a fast outfield, we needed to bowl smarter and/or have some more pace to try and ruffle up the batsmen. Seems strange that McKerr didn't even make the squad. The two main spinners were better and picked up all 4 wickets but still lacked consistency and, other than Moriarty's morning spell, didn't keep it dry.

More disappointing though was the fielding. Virdi dropped a sitter offf century maker Lloyd when on 30 odd, Topley goes down in instalments on the rare occasions he gets to the ball on the boundary, Amla shuffles around and for a guy with ''such a safe pair of hands'' (per Churchy) Clarke doesn't half miss a lot. Most surprising and concerning of all though was Pope's fielding. He seemed distracted by the captaincy, diving over the ball in the morning and misjudging the flight later on. Honourable fielding exceptions were Patel with some fine diving stops and Foakes, good to have him back with a usual tidy display and a comfortable stumping.

The change of captaincy certainly wasn't a success today. It all seemed very quiet as we went through the motions lacking any oomph. Only two results looking likely from here and neither is a Surrey win.

At what point are questions asked of Solanki?

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:At what point are questions asked of Solanki?

Olly - good question. I'll reply a bit tonight. Off to Oval again now. Glutton for punishment.

Kind of irrelevant, but Douthwaite being 19* off 82 when you are 500-5 (came in at 429) is pretty diabolical.

600 up for Glamorgan

650 up
Glad Gooch isn't on here at the moment he would have burst a blood vessel

Glamorgan declare on 672 for 6
we don't have to rely on Amla again

jimbobgooner wrote:650 up
Glad Gooch isn't on here at the moment he would have burst a blood vessel  

Perhaps he has and what's why he ain't here! If so, get well soon, Goochie.

great pitch this

jimbobgooner wrote:great pitch this

I hope Guildford enjoys seeing loads of runs

https://twitter.com/awsstats/status/1441045418314383367?s=21

Flat.

JDizzle wrote:Kind of irrelevant, but Douthwaite being 19* off 82 when you are 500-5 (came in at 429) is pretty diabolical.

Day 2 - belated catch up. Very hot, cloudless day. Track an absolute road. Glamorgan's best approach imo was to keep us out there until just after tea making us more knackered and despondent and hoping that they could add a bit of wear and tear to the wicket before bowling on it. In these circumstances, I could understand Douthwaite concentraring on sticking with captain Cooke although I would have still liked to see him push on more.

My main criticism would be aimed more at Cooke hanging around for too long after tea to bring up his 200. As Olly will already know, in their shoes I would have declared 25 minutes before tea to give us an awkward 15 minutes before the break or, more likely, 10 minutes after tea to keep our opening bats waiting, wondering and generally getting pi**ed off. That would have allowed Glamorgan a good 20+ overs rather than the 15 they actually had. If Cooke missed out on his double ton as a consequence - tough, the team comes first.

Cooke actually made matters worse still by fluffing a stumping chance to get rid of Smith in Salter's first over shortly before the close. Just getting the one wicket in that final session might (who knows?) have had a psychological effect - good and bad - on both sides. As it was, our finishing the day on 45/0 made the draw seem even more nailed on.

One thing that I and many others didn't understand. Jordan Clark didn't bowl a ball all day despite being on the field and having opened the bowling on day one.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

jimbobgooner wrote:great pitch this

I hope Guildford enjoys seeing loads of runs

Very considerate of you but I gave today a miss.

Easy runs on a track not providing a fair contest between bat and ball and thus unsuitable. However, credit still to those for making them and maintaining concentration.

guildfordbat wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:At what point are questions asked of Solanki?

Olly - good question. I'll reply a bit tonight. Off to Oval again now. Glutton for punishment.

Apologies for belated response. Questions are definitely being asked about Solanki but also the whole cricket set up. The responsibilies and distinctions between Solanki's role as head coach and Stewart's as director of cricket are unclear - at least to many of the Oval regulars. Bowling coach Richard Johnson, the fitness coach (forget his name - came from Somerset) and head groundsman Lee Fortis are others whose ears should be burning.

I see today that Steve Elworthy has been appointed Chief Executive following Richard Gould's departure earlier in the year. Only time will tell but, given his own playing background, this may be an important step towards identifying exactly what things are wrong and putting them right.

Just as a quick triviality, how many runs does Pope need this innings to take his average at the Oval back over 100?

dummy_half wrote:Just as a quick triviality, how many runs does Pope need this innings to take his average at the Oval back over 100?

So answering my own question, after the 4th test match, Pope at the Oval had 1493 runs in 20 innings with 4 not outs, so 1493 for being out 16 times - average of just over 93.

107 not out or out for 207 sees him back over 100 average.
Currently 169 not out, so a 'live' average of 103.

Also I note that Glamorgan have used 9 bowlers this innings, with only Kiran Carlson of the outfielders having not turned his arm over. His bowling must be on a level with mine (slow non-turning off spin).

This looks like a real dog of a pitch and I can't think of a worse pair to be bowling to on it.

I’m there today, Soul, and it is. It sure is ….

And now all 10 outfielders have bowled at least 2 overs. Wonder if the keeper will take the pads off and have an over or two as well.

I'm assuming there's a bit of a 'last day of term' feel, as there's no hope of a result so it's just a case of going through the motions.

guildfordbat wrote:I’m there today, Soul, and it is. It sure is ….

Even on a dead pitch it must still be a joy to watch Pope in full flow? He's far too good for county attacks.

Possible records to watch:
Surrey 3rd wicket partnership - Currently 340 runs (current score = 587-2). Record is 413, so need to get to 660

Surrey highest partnership for any wicket = 448, so need to get to 695.

Highest individual innings for Surrey = 357*. KP got 355* in 2015 as the highest score of the modern era. Pope currently in the 220s, so would need to keep scoring quickly, and the game may be curtailed as an agreed draw. Similarly, Surrey's highest ever inning (811) looks out of reach, but highest since ww2 (706-4) might be within reach

Jinxed it - Amla out for 163 and the partnership only 362. 609-3, so still 63 behind on first innings.

Pope over 250 now, no sign of slowing down either. He's captain, he should just bat until he's out

11 bowlers??!! What a joke! I was at Liverpool watching Guildford's favourite player Ronnie Barker come agonisingly close to winning the County Championship

thegooch7 wrote:11 bowlers??!! What a joke! I was at Liverpool watching Guildford's favourite player Ronnie Barker come agonisingly close to winning the County Championship

Ah Goochie, I envy you that. Winter well, my cyber friend.

Soul Requiem wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:I’m there today, Soul, and it is. It sure is ….

Even on a dead pitch it must still be a joy to watch Pope in full flow? He's far too good for county attacks.

Yep, always good to see a top act whatever the circumstances.

Two unknown guys spent most of the lunchbreak by the side of the track and then talking to the head groundsman. Nothing was announced but the feeling was that they were pitch inspectors from the ECB. Quite right if they were. Almost 1,400 runs over the four full days for just 10 wickets and not one taken by a seamer - that's as bad as a spinning wicket giving up 20 wickets on day one.

Thanks again for all the contributions throughout the season
winter well chaps

jimbobgooner wrote:Thanks again for all the contributions throughout the season  
winter well chaps

And you, JimBob.

jimbobgooner wrote:Thanks again for all the contributions throughout the season  
winter well chaps

Not our year - but enjoyed as ever your contributions chaps!
Here’s to a better 2022