It feels like its been an age since I last went to the Oval and saw a red ball bowled, but come this weekend I'll be back there to see the start of Surrey's 2010 County Championship campaign.
The pre-season friendly against Cambridge did little to inspire, the batsman did what was expected and scored plenty of runs, the bowlers were a little less than incisive, though Dernbach's four-for is encouraging. Linley isn't up to it at this level if you ask me, Jewell is still too young to judge and we haven't learnt much about Stuart Meaker that we didn't know already - pretty quick but not taking the wickets we'd like.
That said, the attack should take on a pretty different look come the weekend. Rao will presumably be available, Tremlett and Nel likewise, on early season pitches that could make for a very potent attack. To fit four seamers in might be a bit much to ask, if we want a spinning option as well that means Gareth Batty at number seven, definitely a place too high, but that would give us an awful lot of bowling:
Brown
Harinath
Ramprakash
Afzaal
Hamilton-Brown (c)
Davies (wk)
Batty
Nel
Tremlett
Rao
Dernbach
Alternatively, a more cautious approach would be to put Spriegel at six, and have him, Hamilton-Brown and Afzaal doing the spinning duties, if the wicket is a bit green and there's a bit of cloud about, that might not be such a bad idea.
Brown
Harinath
Ramprakash
Afzaal
Hamilton-Brown (c)
Spriegel
Davies (wk)
Nel
Tremlett
Rao
Dernbach
Whatever the lineup, its an awful lot stronger than we had last year and I'm an awful lot more confident now than I was then!
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3 comments:
Hi again,
Good post. I can't wait for the new season to start. As you can tell from the name, I'm a Manchester lad but I support Surrey thanks to the introduction to the Lions from a London friend back in 2004.
Linley and Jewell look bad, I mean bad, but Surrey's attack looks powerful(Never thought I'd be saying that!).
I have concerns over Harinath but mostly Batty. Batty is a decent spinner, but I'd rather Schofield, don't you?
And when Chawla comes back from international duty, and Jordan recovers from injury, Surrey's bowling should be too good for the rest.
Cracking, and Surrey are the Man Utd of cricket after all...I hope for Man Utd's sake that isn't true actually.
Linley is rubbish, Jewell just might be rubbish, can't say either way just yet! I agree though, it does feel odd saying that Surrey's bowling looks good!
Harinath is made of the right stuff I think, I hope they give him a chance, but I could be wrong with him. Batty is neither here nor there with bat or ball I fear, but a good squad player. Schofield had a funny season last year, very good with the bat, not so good with the ball, I hope he gets his bowling mojo back this year, and I hope Chawla does come to Surrey after all!
Still looks weak in the batting but would prefer going in with Batty at 7 as Afzal and RHB are not real spinners. As usual a lot of pressure on Ramps to get a high percentage of the runs.
Apart from Spiegel and Walters who is back up this year and lets face it those 2 should not be county cricketers!
Could Brown actually go on to make a score one day as well instead of a quick 40 and out? Agreed on Chawla can't wait to see him playing later in the season.
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