Spriegel cashes in, Meaker misses out

A close to full strength Bangladesh began their tour of England against Surrey today - Ashraful, Shakib, Mahmudullah and Rahim all made an appearance today and when Chris Schofield (captaining the side) was dismissed leaving the side 135-6, it looked like the test team were a little too strong for their county opponents.

But...Matthew Spriegel, returned to the middle order at my behest scored a very smart hundred and put on just shy of 200 with Stuart Meaker, who will be disappointed to have missed out on his maiden first class hundred when he was dismissed for 94 just before the close. His dismissal triggered a very competitive declaration from Schofield, but Bangladesh survived the five overs they had to face before close - I must say I was particularly disappointed that Matt Dunn wasn't given one of those overs though.

Spriegel celebrates his hundred (image courtesy of James Cannon Photography)

So plenty of positives, Tom Lancefield played very positively before falling short of his maiden fifty on debut and although Laurie Evans didn't make a score, he will surely get a chance in the County Championship soon. Usman Afzaal continued his miserable form and I wouldn't be surprised of disappointed to see him banished to the seconds in favour of either of Evans or Lancefield (I'd play both and drop a bowler, surprise surprise!).

So a pretty positive day for Surrey apart from the brittle top order, Harinath just needs to get a big score I think and he'll go on to make more, and Evans and Lancefield can be excused given their inexperience and the fact that they were facing a test-class (albeit a low ranked one) attack. Hopefully Meaker, Dunn and Jewell will get amongst the wickets and give us Surrey fans something to smile about!