T20 Outlook for Surrey "Galactico's"!!

Well we have had the first three games of this year's tournament and the outlook for Surrey seems a little cloudy. Firstly we have played 3 of the 4 weakest teams (Gloucs are the 4th) in our section and I was certainly expecting to win all 3 games. I am afraid the batting looks very mediocre. Obviously we are without the Little Master (Pope) and Mr Franchise (Roy) but our other batsmen are struggling. Evans, Smith and even Jacks are not playing well and if it had not been for that incredible Abbott knock (which I doubt will happen again), our record would have been Won 1, Lost 2!!! These batsmen must stop thinking they have to keep hitting sixes and start playing attacking shots on the floor!! This is also an argument for including Ben Foakes in the team as he is a proper batsmen rather than a slogger.
My other main comment is what on earth are Moriarty and Virdi doing apart from turning up for the seconds? They have become utterly redundant in the red ball game so surely Gareth Batty should be taking these 2 on special coaching sessions and turning them into useful white ball spin bowlers - Gareth was an excellent T20 bowler for us and if these 2 could develop into a good spin alternative it means we could use an overseas place for a top top batsmen which is what we need rather than Narine.
Has everyone looked at the Lancashire top 5 batting line up? In their latest game they had Salt, Wells, Croft, Mitchell and Livingstone and Buttler is not even in the side yet!!! The addition of the New Zealander Mitchell was a masterstroke. There is no doubt that although bowlers win you red ball cricket it is batsmen that win the white ball stuff. Also look at the latest Indian prodigy, Shubnam Gill, who has just hit three centuries in 4 T20 matches and got his team to the IPL final on his own! You have to have at least 5 top batsmen to win the T20 and unless things change dramatically I can see us struggling to even get to the quarter finals at present.
We now have this horrendous run of 6 T20 matches in a row on the road because the India/Australia test match is taking place at the Oval. Away games are much more difficult for Surrey so what record do people think we will have once we get back to the Oval for the last 5 matches again all in a row? I am worried!! Our team has been labelled as the cricket equivalent of the Barcelona "Galactico's" - perhaps our players are taking this nonsense hype a little too literally.

Blimey another 11 matches! Back to my hibernation.

Hopefully Roy is back from his injury soon. Unfortunately don't think we will see Pope at all in this format which is a shame as he is world class in this format. The perfect number 3. We should be getting Jordan back soon though wd could lose Abbott. I agree Moriarty should be in the side.

The idea of a proper batsman in T20 doesn't exist imo. The game is more and more moving towards sides being packed with allrounders. Sam bats top 3 in the IPL as has Narine. Tom, Overton and Abbott are all great allrounders in this format. When a side bats to 10 its more about strike rate than average. You rely on one big innings or one big partnership to take you from average score to that top score.

For me, Pope Roy, Jordan, Topley and Moriarty would improve us. Beyond that this is a class side. Have faith. We will win more than we lose.

My best side were everyone available (assumes both TC and Overton can bowl and Abbot is no longer with us). Plenty of bowling. Can bat down to 9.

Jacks
Roy
Pope
Sam
Evans
Tom
Overton
Narine
Jordan
Topley
Moriarty

Smith in for Pope. Atkinson/Lawes/Clark in for Topley/Jordan.

I'd actually see if Evans was willing to keep ans see of we could get another allrounder in for Smith. Smith hasn't contributed much in this format and it really doesn't suit his game that well. Evans has kept before and did it for a couple games in the BBL with a lot of plaudits. I think he even took a stumping.

Our problem is that we are playing two all rounders purely as batsmen,TC and Overton .Doesn’t help the balance of the side at all. We are short of specialists in the batting department .We have lucky up until yesterday with 2/3 excellent innings by Jacks and the Currans and of course by Abbott!! But the lack of depth in the batting cost us yesterday. Surely,someone like Geddes is a better batsman than Overton!!

If we lose Abbott, and before Latham joins us for the next set of championship matches, would we not have space for another overseas signing to cover the remaining T20 campaign?

The obvious man is Aaron Finch.

We are losing Abbott - no “if” about it - he has been called up as a reserve for the Australian squad.

Not in the “named” squad (weirdly) but they have been saying in all the press he and Neser will be training with the squad.

Surely ,with Roach and Abbot not available,why have we not ensured we have their replacements for both players?? We are now handicapped by having no overseas.Very poor planning by the management!!

We still have plenty of players,too many if anything.Let's give our local lads more opportunities.

dougieginn wrote:Surely ,with Roach and Abbot not available,why have we not ensured we have their replacements for both players?? We are now handicapped by having no overseas.Very poor planning by the management!!

Narine

Oh just give some of the other guys a go. Forget overseas. It's only T20 and we ain't gonna win it.

Oh yes, let's field Dom Sibley, Reifer, Kimber, Mckerr, Taylor, Sheridan Gumbs and co rather than filling our quota of overseas players or allowing the likes of Chris Jordan to join us when his diary permits. After all, we're charging the paying punters nearly £40 a pop for this now, I'm sure they won't care.

If we're going to run up the white flag to the Hundred we might as well do it in style.

Jackers wrote:Oh yes, let's field Dom Sibley, Reifer, Kimber, Mckerr, Taylor, Sheridan Gumbs and co rather than filling our quota of overseas players or allowing the likes of Chris Jordan to join us when his diary permits. After all, we're charging the paying punters nearly £40 a pop for this now, I'm sure they won't care.

If we're going to run up the white flag to the Hundred we might as well do it in style.

Now you are being silly.Nobody is suggesting 6 or more changes,just a few opportunites for our own players now and then  instead of fly by night mercenaries most of whom come to play for us and do not achieve  very much.Whenever a vacancy occurs of say 2 or 3 matches why do we keep plugging the gaps with so called overseas stars? Many of them have proved a waste of time including Blewett,Pollard,Maddinson,Hardie,Maxwell,O'Brien,Bravo,R.Peterson,Morris and Wahab Riaz off the top of my head.

We haven't won it for 20 years so could hardly do much worse.And,by the way,Sibley averaged more that Roy,Finch or Sangakkara in 2016.

The winning lineup in 2003.

Ward
Brown
Ramprakash
Clarke
Hollioake
Azhar
Thorpe
Batty
Salisbury
Saqlain
Ormond

David Waghorn wrote:Well we have had the first three games of this year's tournament and the outlook for Surrey seems a little cloudy. Firstly we have played 3 of the 4 weakest teams (Gloucs are the 4th) in our section and I was certainly expecting to win all 3 games. I am afraid the batting looks very mediocre. Obviously we are without the Little Master (Pope) and Mr Franchise (Roy) but our other batsmen are struggling. Evans, Smith and even Jacks are not playing well and if it had not been for that incredible Abbott knock (which I doubt will happen again), our record would have been Won 1, Lost 2!!! These batsmen must stop thinking they have to keep hitting sixes and start playing attacking shots on the floor!! This is also an argument for including Ben Foakes in the team as he is a proper batsmen rather than a slogger.
My other main comment is what on earth are Moriarty and Virdi doing apart from turning up for the seconds? They have become utterly redundant in the red ball game so surely Gareth Batty should be taking these 2 on special coaching sessions and turning them into useful white ball spin bowlers - Gareth was an excellent T20 bowler for us and if these 2 could develop into a good spin alternative it means we could use an overseas place for a top top batsmen which is what we need rather than Narine.
Has everyone looked at the Lancashire top 5 batting line up? In their latest game they had Salt, Wells, Croft, Mitchell and Livingstone and Buttler is not even in the side yet!!! The addition of the New Zealander Mitchell was a masterstroke. There is no doubt that although bowlers win you red ball cricket it is batsmen that win the white ball stuff. Also look at the latest Indian prodigy, Shubnam Gill, who has just hit three centuries in 4 T20 matches and got his team to the IPL final on his own! You have to have at least 5 top batsmen to win the T20 and unless things change dramatically I can see us struggling to even get to the quarter finals at present.
We now have this horrendous run of 6 T20 matches in a row on the road because the India/Australia test match is taking place at the Oval. Away games are much more difficult for Surrey so what record do people think we will have once we get back to the Oval for the last 5 matches again all in a row? I am worried!! Our team has been labelled as the cricket equivalent of the Barcelona "Galactico's" - perhaps our players are taking this nonsense hype a little too literally.

Moriarty has played 36 T20 games and taken 31 wickets.

8 first class games....................41 wickets

10 fifty over games...........................15 wickets

We have a third young spinner coming through,Majid,who took two Kent wickets this afternoon for the seconds.What chance does he have when we already have Moriarty and Virdi who can't get a game?

RB wrote:We are losing Abbott - no “if” about it - he has been called up as a reserve for the Australian squad.

Not in the “named” squad (weirdly) but they have been saying in all the press he and Neser will be training with the squad.

What's weird about it?Abbott is 31 and has never played a Test Match.

Maybe I was exaggerating what I thought was being proposed here. Of course we have a proud tradition of producing home-grown players in all formats, and that served us well in the first season of the competition 20 years ago. But how times change: if that team were around today then some of them would (like Chris Jordan) have been missing for the IPL at the start while others - Thorpe certainly, Ward and Ramprakash possibly - would be about to be yanked off for test duty like Pope.

Moriarty should be considered because he is a viable option in the format, not because he happens to be a home-grown player. But none of the available options - Sibley, Burns, Patel, Geddes, is good enough at T20 to replace the Pope and Roy-sized gap in our top order. If we are to be serious contenders (and keep putting bums on the £40-quid public seats) we need to recruit an elite overseas "gun" when Abbott leaves us.

Josh Blake has just top scored (66) for the seconds in a win against Kent.It doesn't matter how many runs this lad scores though.As long as there are overseas "superstars" that we haven't ever signed we should go for more of them before they go off and play for 5 or 6 more teams.

Jackers wrote:Maybe I was exaggerating what I thought was being proposed here. Of course we have a proud tradition of producing home-grown players in all formats, and that served us well in the first season of the competition 20 years ago. But how times change: if that team were around today then some of them would (like Chris Jordan) have been missing for the IPL at the start while others - Thorpe certainly, Ward and Ramprakash possibly - would be about to be yanked off for test duty like Pope.

Moriarty should be considered because he is a viable option in the format, not because he happens to be a home-grown player. But none of the available options - Sibley, Burns, Patel, Geddes, is good enough at T20 to replace the Pope and Roy-sized gap in our top order. If we are to be serious contenders (and keep putting bums on the £40-quid public seats) we need to recruit an elite overseas "gun" when Abbott leaves us.

Who do you rate as the best we have signed in these 20 years? Apart from Finch and Abbott.Surely many more "misses" than "hits."

the line that gets me in all of this is the 1st line of the thread

'Well we have had the first three games of this year's tournament and the outlook for Surrey seems a little cloudy'. No team has the right to win every game, especially in the 'hit and giggle' format that some seem to dislike. No game is a guaranteed win, every game has 2 teams involved and they both, at the start, have equal right to win the game. ! team may have better players than their opponents, but they still have to turn up and play to win. Thats what makes sport so fascinating.

In saying all of that, I do agree that the line up does seem to be missing another T20 batsman, it does look a little disjointed with so many allrounders, and Im not quite sure why Overton, who is obviously not fit enough to bowl, is coming in so late down the order. I also agree that whilst Smith is a huge prospect, Im not sure that this format, and keeping in this format, is suiting his game.

Overton has the ‘smack 30 off 10’ role that’s developed at the end of an innings. In my view it’s a prime example of overthinking tactics. He can bat properly so get him in earlier. He is a superb fielder and his lack of bowling isn’t an issue in this format. I think he’s more worthy of a place than Tom Curran.

And a short PS to the original post, galaticos are Real Madrid, not Barca!

We knew in advance that we would lose Abbott at this stage of the season and would need a replacement also for Pope and Foakes,so why didn’t we sign another overseas batsman. Very poor planning by Stewart who should have seen this coming.

I don't think we knew for sure: Abbott was booked in to be with us for the entire tournament (end of July). But there was always a risk that he would be called up to add to the four seamers picked in the Ashes squad, or as an injury replacement mid-series. We should have had Plan B lined up ...maybe we do.

Interesting that Hants website has todays match starting at 7.00.p.m and Surrey website fixtures data say 6.30.p.m.  My money is on Hants being right as yet again Surrey have incorrect info on a fixture on their website.  They cannot get it right and it is so basic!!!