Tailenders frustrate Surrey again

Surrey's Good Friday wasn't as good as I might've hoped, Glamorgan batting their way through the day with Dean Cosker and James Harris stubbornly seeing out the day leaving us with yet another wicket to take tomorrow morning - and then 10 more after that.

Stuart Meaker seemed to spend a long time off the field after taking the wicket of Stewart Walters for 35, he was on the field late on but didn't bowl in the evening session. Hopefully he'll be able to shake off whatever was laying him low by tomorrow.

It was a story of frustration by Glamorgan's tail end batsmen today, just as Northants did in the first game. In the two games so far opposing top five batsmen have mustered just 278 runs, while the bottom five in the batting order have racked up 514, and counting. Of course this isn't just down to bad bowling, in fact little of it is, this is another batsman's pitch just as the Oval was last week, but it is incredibly frustrating. Arafat's travails continue, he has now failed to take a wicket in 57 overs, giving away 3.7 RPO in the process. It is more than a little worrying.

Schofield and Batty have bowled almost 50 overs between them in this innings, collecting three wickets and keeping the runs down by and large. Dernbach wasn't allowed to bowl until lunch because of his absence (stomach bug related apparently), he collected a single wicket but gave away just 28 runs in 20 overs.

If Hamilton-Brown doesn't have his full quota of bowlers tomorrow I suspect he will enforce the follow on, continuing the attacking vein his declaration against Northants hinted at, it is the only possible way of grabbing a win. However the lead is now less than 200 and the pitch still seems easy enough to bat on, Glamorgan look sure to be able to bat themselves into a lead and probably make the game safe.

Even if we can't bowl ourselves into a winning position it would be daft to be overly critical. This pitch is full of runs and we've scored a hatful, the bowlers have doggedly chipped away today against a disciplined and deep batting lineup. A couple of niggly injuries have disrupted the bowling plans as well which won't have helped matters. Its frustrating of course, but the pitch has scuppered any chance of a Surrey win here, not the players.