Surrey: A challenge for my vocabulary

Some synonyms for "bad":

atrocious, abominable, awful, dreadful, painful, terrible, unspeakable, deplorable, distressing, lamentable, pitiful, sad, sorry, fearful, frightful, hopeless, horrid, crappy, lousy, rotten, incompetent, unskilled, mediocre, poor....

All of the above apply to Surrey's "bad" start to this county season. The loss to Derbyshire is well documented here, and elsewhere much to Surrey fans' shame, and as Surrey sunk to 15-3 today we could be forgiven for turning away in a mixture of disgust, shame and embarrassment. 15-3 became 85-5 before they managed to crawl to 199-7 (at a run rate barely over 2), just a point short of a single batting point. Of course if it takes them 14 overs to get that single (not inconceivable given today's funereal pace) they'll miss out on the point anyway. That's how bad it is - Derbyshire missed out on their final batting point because they hadn't reached 400 by the 110th over - Surrey will miss out on all but one because of their run rate.

Arun Harinath was the only player to pass 50, though when you consume 300 balls in making 62, you really ought to be making three figures, but credit where its due I suppose, at least he stuck around. Afzaal was bowled by Martin-Jenkins, I don't doubt it was in playing a stupid shot.

I just do not know where to look at the moment, our batsmen don't look up to the task, and I worry about an attack that will rely heavily on two spinners in April being able to take 20 wickets here. The performances in the latter half of last season and in the five days of cricket this season beggar belief, and are so far short of what we are entitled to expect I am unable to put it into words.

I can only hope that Rao Iftikhar will take to this pitch like Robin Martin-Jenkins did today, and cause Sussex the same sort of trouble they caused our batsmen.