Surrey have named a 14 man squad for tomorrow's first Pro40 game of the season because of some stand out performances in the Second XI game with Middlesex this week. Stuart Meaker took 12 wickets and Laurie Evans made a hundred and are therefore included in the squad. I would caution against throwing them in because there is some way between the quality of the Middlesex Second XI and the Lancashire First XI!
The 14 players named are as follows in the order I'd prefer!
Usman Afzaal
Steven Davies
Mark Ramprakash
Rory Hamilton-Brown
Matthew Spriegel
Stewart Walters
Gareth Batty
Chris Schofield
Andre Nel
Jade Dernbach
Rao Iftikhar Anjum
Bench: Laurie Evans, Tim Linley, Stuart Meaker
I suspect that Evans might play in place of Walters, which I wouldn't necessarily disagree with, and Meaker may well come in for Rao given that he barely bowled against Worcestershire - this I would be very disappointed with.
The side above is a batsman light, still (in fact if I was feeling particularly uncharitable I'd say the tail starts at 5...), and there is almost no power hitting once Afzaal goes, but that's the squad we have! Lancashire have named the following:
Glen Chapple, Mark Chilton, Steven Croft, Kyle Hogg, Paul Horton, Sajid Mahmood, Stephen Moore, Stephen Parry, Ashwell Prince, Daren Powell, Luke Procter, Tom Smith, Luke Sutton.
Names like Chapple, Mahmood, Prince and Moore mark that out as a very decent side, but mercifully James Anderson has departed to the Caribbean for the World Twenty20, I would've feared a bloodbath of Surrey batsmen if he'd have played! They're not an unbeatable side but they've got a couple of standout bowlers and very good batsmen, I would suggest they've got enough about them to come out on top tomorrow.
Needless to say by the way, still no Tremlett, not even referenced on the official site, so presumably he's not recovered from his 'minor groin injury', which I suspect isn't all that minor at all.
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4 comments:
You must feel slightly more confident about the bowling - the spinners almost pulled off a win!
Interestingly, an ex-Surrey and Derbyshire spinner called Nayan Doshi made his debut for RCB - as a local player.
Ever so slightly, but there's still a long way to go!
I did see Doshi today, I couldn't believe it was the same one! He was really good for us in Twenty20 - for a while he was the record wicket taker in T20, but he wanted to play more four day cricket and he was pretty rubbish at that, so he left!
Yes, his T20 stats are fantastic. Strange that he should come to India if he wants four-day cricket, as he's less likely to break into a first-class side there - there are too many spinners in every state!
Maybe he's given up on his four-day dream and just wants a bit of cash!
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