Ok, so it was a bit of a contrived win today, but if anything we gave Gloucestershire a cracking chance in only setting 260 as the target. It was a very competitive declaration and when Gloucs were cruising with Dent and Marshall going well, it looked horribly misjudged.
However Jade Dernbach, with two in two balls right at the end, won it for Surrey. He's blown seriously hot and seriously cold this season but 46 wickets at 29 is a decent return. Schofield chipped in with four as well, which incredibly is the first time a Surrey spinner has taken more than three wickets in the second innings this season - that encapsulates quite how much we've struggled in that particular area.
Earlier Tom Lancefield hit his highest score since the Worcestershire game, and Hamilton-Brown hit a rapid 50 against some very gentle declaration bowling, Kevin Pietersen (who had earlier tweeted his opposition to playing at all in this weather!) didn't even get a second bat - three first class innings looks to have been his lot for Surrey!
So we finish on 159 points, four ahead of Middlesex and 11 better than last season. Four wins to last year's one but 6 defeats to last year's four speaks of a team well short of experience. This season has been far from a triumph, make no mistake, but it does feel like its been an improvement, if only a very small one.
I'm gutted its the end of the season, it hasn't been the most enjoyable season from a Surrey perspective, but it has been fun and I'm going to miss county cricket for the next many months! I'm compiling plenty of stats as we speak, so I'll be doing player-by-player reviews, and some end of season awards as well!
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1 year ago
5 comments:
Kind of a few steps forward...and sometimes even more backwards!!!
Hate the end of season, so will be looking forward to your stats (that IS sad, yes?)
Definite improvement though - ahead of the Middle!!!!!
Thanks a lot for your excellent posts throughout the season
ShanghaiBelle
Agree, this season has been a series of steps forward followed by steps backwards. Working on the stats as we speak!
Jonathan
Thanks for the kind words, much appreciated, I'll try and keep it up next year!
GreenJJ
Well done for all your work on this blog throughout the summer, I appreciate it may be a labour of love, but I have enjoyed reading it and will miss it now we are at the start of the long road to April...
In the mean time, I have felt we have been better this year, we have relied on Ramps for runs again, but have not been totally reliant, I think - which we were in previous seasons. For The Great Man's sake lets hope we can get promoted next year.
RH-B will be a better captain for the experience next year, I believe he has show he has much more talent than a lot have given him credit for. Steven Davies has been my player of the year - but Tremlett has been brilliant. If Tremlett has pocketed a few 5-fors he would have got my nod.
I would like Surrey to sign KP on a rolling contract - I think his determination and work ethic will rub off on the younger players and we need that.
What we need more, though is an opening bat (Michael Brown come back please), an all-rounder (Hello Chris Jordan) and a spinner (...)
50p says Jason Roy is our most valuable young player at the end of next season.
Chappers (BuzzRockport on the guardian blog)
Thanks Chappers/BuzzRockport, appreciate all your comments, mostly because you seem to agree with my quite a lot which is nice!
Don't want to give too much away on the player of the year front, but it doesn't take a genius to work out that its Ramps, Davies and Trem in the running!
The return of Brown is crucial, fingers crossed he gets back to where he was, same goes for Jordan - will his body ever stand up to the rigours of 40 games a season?
Roy is a class act, and for some reason, even though I've never seen him live, I think Ansari is going to come through as well. We shall see! I'll try and keep the blog going through the long winter months by the way, I'm sure there will be bits and bobs of Surrey news - signings hopefully!
Cheers!
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