Gloucester away

At 296-4 on the morning of Day 2, you lose a few quick ones just trying to bash your way to 350 and you could find yourself in a whole heap of trouble. Amir was still bowling the odd troubling delivery, and could quite easily be having 3/4 scalps in this game. Pope and Curran still had to bat the bulk of their innings in rather murky conditions.

As for Glos, with an iffy forecast for Sunday and already finishing Day 2 unscathed at 90 odd for 0, they kind of had free license to just do what they like. I'm not sure a point of difference bowler like Overton or a frontline spinner in Virdi would have made too much of a difference. They might not look like much on paper, but they're a strong team that are often underestimated at home.

As for us, we've won 2 and drawn 2, which if you'd have offered before the start of the season I'd quite happily take. Burns' form is cause for concern though...

I still think Virdi would have bowled tidily on this wicket instead of the endless list of seam bowlers. We needed variety, Jacks did his best but is not a specialist spinner.

Day 4 is my favourite so far.

Cee Gee wrote:

dougieginn wrote:Day 3 and 700 runs for just 10 wickets,what an awful pitch. Looks like Gloucestershire prepared this one to not lose the match. These wickets are a disgrace who ever prepares them!!

I don’t think anybody associated with Surrey is entitled to label another pitch a disgrace after the surface we served up for the Glamorgan match last season, which was a game which had nothing at stake.

The worst game of all time for me especially taking into account what we went through due to covid.We lost a whole season as spectators and a sizeable chunk of the next one.I was looking forward to 4 days in the sun at The Oval but gave up after 2.Glamorgan batted on and on for 177 overs so Cooke could reach personal milestones and bollocks to the public.I think Surrey embarrassed them into a declaration in the end by messing about and taking as much time as possible between deliveries.Disgraceful.

GLAM   672/6 dec

SURREY   722/4 dec

This, as with the Glamorgan game last year, needs to be a situation where the ECB intervene with severe (10+ pts) pitch deductions. This is the one change that New Zealand made which has transformed their Test team: they force their states to produce better wickets.

dougieginn wrote:I still think Virdi would have bowled tidily on this wicket instead of the endless list of seam bowlers. We needed variety, Jacks did his best but is not a specialist spinner.

No he wouldn't have done. I spoke to him on the boundary and he said he would not want to bowl on this. Even the late great Warne would have struggled to do anything here.

Mercifully the morning session has been washed out and I'm sitting back at home laughing. The umpires need a special dispensation to call this rubbish off and let everyone go home for Sunday lunch.

They won't dock points because this sort of wicket is considered "good" by the ECB and simply will not be reported.

Roll on Thursday.

Ah! They are putting more covers on.

Match Drawn - I think the umpires have had a sensible pill.

We'll never know if they would have saved the follow on...

Alex! wrote:At 296-4 on the morning of Day 2, you lose a few quick ones just trying to bash your way to 350 and you could find yourself in a whole heap of trouble. Amir was still bowling the odd troubling delivery, and could quite easily be having 3/4 scalps in this game. Pope and Curran still had to bat the bulk of their innings in rather murky conditions.

As for Glos, with an iffy forecast for Sunday and already finishing Day 2 unscathed at 90 odd for 0, they kind of had free license to just do what they like. I'm not sure a point of difference bowler like Overton or a frontline spinner in Virdi would have made too much of a difference. They might not look like much on paper, but they're a strong team that are often underestimated at home.

As for us, we've won 2 and drawn 2, which if you'd have offered before the start of the season I'd quite happily take. Burns' form is cause for concern though...

Hi Alex - that's a pretty fair and considered reply. You clearly gave a lot of thought to the position of both sides whilst wandering across Victoria Park and sipping your latte on Saturday.

I do feel though that the Surrey team should be more conscious of the bonus points available when batting. Sure, getting a big total on the board to win (or at least not lose) is the most important thing but achieving that and bonus points should be complementary rather than mutually exclusive. I reckon we've squandered at least a couple of bonus points already this season. Come the end of September, that just might be significant.

It wouldn't have changed the result but I do believe we went into this game a frontline bowler light. A non bowling Sam, C de G and Jacks at 6, 7 and 8 allows for plenty of welly when batting but doesn't give us strong enough alternatives with the ball.

And I say again, nothing would have made any difference on this track. I was there and you could have played 8 days and not got a result. Apart from the first session on Day 1 it was the worst pudding of a wicket you could imagine believe me.

Suspect Burns, Patel, Amla, and Bracey will be a bit frustrated.