Final pre-season squad named

The 12 men who will contest Surrey's final pre-season game against Leeds-Bradford MCCU have been named and interestingly a couple of key players have been rested.

The 12 man squad, and a possible XI, is as follows:

Jason Roy
Gary Wilson
Tom Maynard
Rory Hamilton-Brown
Matthew Spriegel
Rory Burns
Chris Jordan
Tom Jewell
Stuart Meaker
Tim Linley
Matthew Dunn

12th man: Freddie van den Bergh

Jon Lewis and Jade Dernbach have been rested because, presumably, they are already on the teamsheet for the opening game against Sussex. The key position to watch out for is who comes out to open the batting - Chris Adams confirmed at the AGM that Hamilton-Brown will return to his favoured middle order this season which leaves the position of Rudolph's partner vacant. Given that Spriegel will likely lose his place to Gareth Batty, Jordan was tried in that position this week and found wanting and Wilson will probably play instead of Burns against Sussex, that leaves only two likely openers - Wilson himself and Jason Roy.

Roy is of course more comfortable in the middle order in Championship cricket and will probably return there once Davies is home from Sri Lanka. Wilson was tested as opener in the first three fixtures of last season, averaging 22 and without a 50, but only one of those innings was a complete failure - a 10 ball duck at Lord's. Who gets the job is very much up in the air, but I think Adams might go for Roy again.

The other interesting battle to watch will be who of Meaker and Linley comes off best. Or whether the pair of them are outshone by young Matt Dunn who Adams could pick to play his first game of this pre-season. Although van den Bergh performed well against Somerset, he will have to go back to university soon I think so Dunn would be a more sensible choice. Meaker and Linley are probably in a shoot-out for the final seam bowling spot in the team and I don't envy Adams in having to make the decision between the two.

As for the opposition, this will be their debut as a first class cricket side but they do have previous at the Oval having beaten us there in 2005. And of course Surrey's most recent university game ended in an embarrassing defeat to Cambridge last May. Only one of their side has first class experience but they won't want to be hammered and shouldn't be taken lightly.

The batsmen, particularly Maynard, Roy and Hamilton-Brown, should look at this as a key opportunity to face a lot of balls and bag a lot of runs. The bowlers simply need to continue the good work they've been doing already. Just a few more days to go now!

Somerset steamroller Surrey

A target of 410 inside little more than a day's cricket was always going to be the longest of long shots, and Surrey were duly overwhelmed comfortably by Somerset earlier today.

There is now just a single pre-season game remaining for the batsmen to get some runs under their belt. Though Tom Maynard scored a much-needed 49 today, he, Jason Roy and especially Hamilton-Brown haven't had enough time at the crease to feel truly comfortable. It makes the decision to "rest" the skipper for Monday's game all the more confusing, especially when you take into account his lack of runs for his various teams this winter.

Somerset's bowling attack was far from weak today, that should not be overlooked. Steve Kirby, Gemaal Hussain and George Dockrell are all impressive bowlers. However, this is the quality of bowling we will face day in, day out this season and all the red ball cricket played so far this season points to a lack of confidence in the batting.

On the plus side there is still plenty of steel to come into this batting lineup. Jacques Rudolph, Mark Ramprakash, Zander de Bruyn, even Gareth Batty, will all add a bit of grit. Gary Wilson, in some form for Ireland in recent weeks, will also slot in and before long Steve Davies will return.

Adams took the curious approach of trialing Chris Jordan as an opener with Arun Harinath. Two failures later, that experiment has probably been shelved. Unless Arun Harinath is selected for the Sussex game Jason Roy is surely favourite to return as Championship opener, unless Gary Wilson is given another chance.

As for the bowling, there is certainly more to smile about. On the first day Linley, Lewis and Dernbach shared the wickets around and yesterday, despite Somerset racking up a huge total, Freddie van den Bergh collected a clutch of wickets. I still don't know what Adams will plump for in terms of his bowling lineup for Sussex, but I suspect Lewis has only strengthened his hand and the selection for the Leeds/Bradford game will reveal much.

Despite the season not even having started, there will be a touch of pressure on the batsmen over the weekend to deliver some big runs. If nothing else, going into Division One cricket very light on runs will be difficult psychologically. They can bat for hours on end in the nets, but nothing can substitute for time out in the middle.

Adams has some thinking to do now. He will want to name a side for the University game as close as possible to that which will start against Sussex. Perhaps a heavy defeat to Somerset will be the wake up call that the players needed to stir them from their winter slumber. It is too early to read too much into the form of one particular player, but they must look at the coming three day contest as an opportunity to get their heads in order.

Powerful Somerset too much for Surrey

In London it felt more like June than March today, so I imagine in the South West it was positively tropical. Under sunny skies, and on a typically true Taunton pitch, Surrey succumbed to a strong Somerset batting lineup by 50 runs.

Given the conditions, the pitch and the reputation of Taunton as a batsman's paradise it was surprising that stand-in captain Jade Dernbach elected to have a bowl. Somerset made him pay, racking up 300-5, Kieswetter with 81 and Peter Trego 99, bowled by Chris Jordan with the final ball of the innings.

Matt Spriegel returned 1-36, accounting for Kieswetter. Jade Dernbach and Jon Lewis also picked up a wicket apiece while Meaker and Linley went begging.

Rory Burns was promoted to open the innings with Arun Harinath but didn't last very long, gone for just 8 in the third over. Jason Roy joined Harinath and between them they amassed a 132 run partnership at a good pace. Once Harinath departed for 62 the Surrey innings faltered, wickets falling regularly until Tim Linley was last man out with the score on 250.

With Hamilton-Brown rested it was a chance for one of the fresher batsmen to step up and to his great credit Harinath did just that. In the Second XI trophy last season he scored heavily and quickly, it would be good if he and Lancefield (29 runs today but had a thankless task as the asking rate climbed and wickets fell) could push for a slot in the limited overs batting order.

Linley will have been disappointed to go without a wicket again today and may be feeling a bit of pressure from Meaker and Lewis. He'll want to turn it around over the next three days, and in the university game at the weekend.

It was good to see a couple of batsmen in the runs today, Maynard and Hamilton-Brown in particular will want to follow suit in the coming fixture. The focus switches to the red ball from tomorrow onwards and the preparation will start to get serious. Six days of cricket remain until the season begins in earnest, there's still plenty to play for!

Squad named for trip to Taunton

Chris Adams has tinkered with the squad that traveled to Chelmsford last week, 13 brave souls will go to Taunton, first for a one day game tomorrow and then a three day first class match from Tuesday.

The following 13 players have been selected:

Rory Hamilton-Brown
Tom Lancefield
Arun Harinath
Matthew Spriegel
Tom Maynard
Jason Roy
Rory Burns
Chris Jordan
Jon Lewis
Stuart Meaker
Tim Linley
Jade Dernbach
Freddie van den Bergh

Presumably at some point over the four days all thirteen players will make an appearance, but Adams will probably want to use this as further opportunity to evaluate two principal issues.

First, who will open with Jacques Rudolph when he arrives? Interestingly Hamilton-Brown didn't open in either innings against Essex, Adams opting instead for Roy and Harinath. The jury on Roy as an opener is definitely out, in 14 innings he averages in the late 20s with, two 50s and a hundred. I can see that Adams wants him to play the enforcer role at the top, a la Sehwag or Gayle and he may yet grow into that, but I wonder if he's ready for that challenge just yet. Similarly Harinath's record as an opener is far from brilliant, from 23 innings he averages in the low 20s with three 50s and no hundreds. Mentally and technically he is perhaps a long term bet as an opener but again I feel it might be too soon for him. It will be interesting to see if Adams continues with that pair, goes back to Hamilton-Brown, or tries something different altogether - Spriegel or Lancefield perhaps. The latter averaged 32 during a brief stint as opener in 2010 and was in good touch last week.

The second issue will be which two of Lewis, Linley and Meaker will nail down their spot in the Championship side. Lewis, with a clutch of wickets, and Meaker, with wickets and aggressive runs, did themselves no harm last week. Linley will want to bag a few scalps this week to press his case further.

Adams will also want to see how Chris Jordan is faring after his time with Barbados, there's still time for him to crowbar himself into contention and give the coach even more to think about. It's also worth keeping an eye on Freddie van den Bergh if he gets some game time, a left arm spinner still at university, very much in the Zafar Ansari mould, he was the academy player of the year in 2011 and is very highly thought of.

After the batting failed to fire in either innings at Chelmsford Adams will be looking for a big improvement on that front. The bowling will have what looks to be a full strength Somerset batting lineup to contend with, Kieswetter, Trescothick, Buttler, Suppiah, Trego, Hildreth and Compton will all be hungry for some runs of their own.

First pre-season game in the bank, what have we learned?

The short answer is, not much. The bowlers have some miles in their legs, but the top order batsmen don't have an awful lot to write home about.

The big winners from the last couple of days are Jon Lewis, who picked up 3-50, Tom Lancefield who rode out a tricky period amongst which Surrey fell to 16-5, and Rory Burns who put in a decent shift with the bat in the first and second innings.

With that kind of top order collapse it would be easy to come to the conclusion that the winters of Hamilton-Brown, Roy and Maynard, spent playing Twenty20 cricket in New Zealand and Bangladesh, had not been spent in an ideal fashion. But that would probably be reading too much into a two day fixture which is the first meaningful outing all the players have had with/against the red ball in many a month.

Stuart Meaker made it through plenty of overs, a few wickets, and a fair few runs as well and seems very likely now to be at the head of the pack for the Sussex game. It's possible that the fight for the final seam bowling slot is between Jon Lewis and Tim Linley. Linley didn't collect many wickets in this game while Lewis was, statistically at least, more impressive. It's still far from cut and dry however, Linley has a lot of credit in the bank and it would be a bold move to leave him out of the first fixture.

Two fixtures remain before the proper cricket starts. Next week Surrey have four days in Somerset, followed by the opening first class fixture of the season against Leeds-Bradford MCCU at the Oval. Adams won't be too worried by the below-par batting performance in this game, but equally he won't want that repeated against Somerset, leaving only one game for the batsmen to have some time in the middle. There is work to be done, but I'd rather we had a 16-5 situation in the middle of March than at the start of April.

Cricket is back - 2012's first squad named

Chris Adams has appropriately named a 12 man squad to kick off the 2012 pre-season schedule with a two day game against Essex at Chelmsford. Shorn of a few regulars including Mark Ramprakash and Gareth Batty who are due to jet off soon to Abu Dhabi for the MCC game, and Gary Wilson who is away with Ireland, there's plenty of room for some youngsters to make an impression ahead of the first Championship game. Jacques Rudolph remains with South Africa until the the third test in Wellington ends around the 27th.

The following 12 players have been named:

Rory Hamilton-Brown
Tom Lancefield
Arun Harinath
Matthew Spriegel
Tom Maynard
Jason Roy
Rory Burns
Jon Lewis
Stuart Meaker
Tim Linley
Jade Dernbach
George Edwards

I would guess Chris Adams has eight names already pencilled onto the teamsheet to face Sussex on the 5th of April. The top five of Hamilton-Brown, Rudolph, Ramprakash, de Bruyn and Maynard are almost certain to start, and barring a spectacular pre-season Rory Burns will probably make way for Gary Wilson when he returns (Steven Davies is away with England). Jade Dernbach is very likely to make the cut, so too Tim Linley who should be given a fair crack of the whip at the top level having had such an outstanding 2011.

That leaves three spare spots, with Gareth Batty, Stuart Meaker, Chris Jordan, Jon Lewis and Jason Roy all in with a very loud shout. Again, this is of course barring a stellar performance from one or all of Harinath, Spriegel, Lancefield or Edwards - but to leapfrog any of the previous five the performance will really have to be special to make it into the Championship first XI.

So Chris Adams has a tough job on his hands. With Batty and Jordan absent for now, Meaker, Lewis and Roy are in the box seats to challenge in this first pre-season game. Much may depend on the conditions at the Oval for the Sussex game, but I would be very surprised if Adams went into that game without a spinner, which makes Gareth Batty a very strong favourite to bag one of the three spots on offer despite not being present for all of pre-season.

So now we're down to two spare spots. Adams ended last season with Jason Roy at number six and Chris Jordan at number eight, but I think they'll probably be fighting over one spot. Roy or Jordan is a very tough call and Jordan's form in the Caribbean where he's taken 10 wickets in his last two games for Barbados may give him the edge. For what it's worth I'd go with Roy and have de Bruyn bowl some fill-in overs. He might not have nailed down beyond all doubt his place in the Championship first XI last season, but his talent is beyond question. What better way for him to improve his innings-building skills than against Division One attacks?

The final spot then could come down to a straight choice between Lewis and Meaker, the young tyro and the gnarled old pro (sorry Jon). Meaker is the man in possession having ended last season strongly with fifteen wickets in the last three matches, but he has had a spot of back trouble recently and Adams may be wary of throwing him straight in. If Meaker makes it through a few testing pre-season bowling spells I think Adams will go with him, and sign of an injury and Lewis will be straight in.

A few side-shows then to the pre-season games. The battle for first team spots and a great opportunity for a few of our younger players to stake a claim for first team cricket. I'm just happy to have domestic cricket back in my life, I've missed you old buddy!