The good and the bad

Surrey were brought back down to earth with a bump today by two excellent hundreds from Solanki and Moeen Ali, they batted very well today, but Surrey let them take charge.  Despite putting on a few quick runs and then nipping out both Mitchell and the dangerous Jaques for nothing between the two of them, the bowlers were unable to follow that up and very little pressure was applied thereafter.

For some reason, I can only presume it is down to injury, Rao bowled just 8 overs out of 76 bowled, that's a very worrying sign as he was one of only two Surrey bowlers to take a wicket.  As I pointed out yesterday, the two spinners strategy came back to bite them, the combined figures for the spinners were 43-6-166-0, a combined run rate of just under 4 - not very good.  That compares to 33-10-92-3, and Rao and Nel bowled excellently with combined figures of 21-9-46-3.

I like Schofield, but he's not an effective bowler at the moment.  Since the beginning of last season he has been taking wickets at the astronomical average of 66, all the while going at almost 4 runs an over.  His strike rate sees him only taking a wicket once every 18 overs.  If anything he should be considered as a batsman alone, I certainly like the look of him over Stewart Walters.

I was a bit disappointed in Hamilton-Brown's captaincy today too.  It was clear even to those not at the ground (me included!) that spin was not proving effective, and yet he persisted (though this may have been foisted upon him to a degree if Rao was unavailable).  I would like to have seen Afzaal given a bowl, particularly as Moeen and Solanki approached their hundreds, but perhaps that is a sign of the lack of confidence RHB has in one of his senior players.

You'd have say this game has draw written all over it, Worcester look well set to gain something close to parity unless we really get amongst them tomorrow morning - and if Rao is injured that will be tough since only Nel of the other bowlers looks capable of keeping pressure up.  At least this game has seen Surrey tick one box in racking up 500 in the first innings, but the bowling still needs plenty of work.