Gareth Batty was a late withdrawal with a side injury so Vikram Solanki captained the side for the first time. He duly won the toss and for some unfathomable reason elected to bowl first. On a small ground, a good looking pitch and with the chase to take place under lights surely batting first was the way to go?
The Essex openers got off to a very good start and the platform Westley and Rutherford set quickly started to look formidable. Given the comprehensive battering Ryan ten Doeschate had handed out to Scotland yesterday (180 off 98 balls) and with Graham Napier lurking in the wings, we needed wickets and we needed them early.
As it happened today neither Napier nor ten Doeschate played much of a role in Essex setting the mammoth total of 312. Pettini, Bopara and Shah made solid contributions before James Foster added the gloss with 39 off just 18 balls. Surrey hardly helped themselves though giving away 21 runs in wides alone. Only Stuart Meaker and Gary Keedy escaped with any credit.
To have any hope of chasing the total down Surrey needed a blazing start from the openers. When Jason Roy was comprehensively bamboozled by a Graham Napier slower ball to be clean bowled in the third over a win seemed a long way off. To make matters worse Steven Davies helped a David Masters delivery into the hands of Owais Shah at short third man and the writing was almost on the wall.
Ricky Ponting had to deliver something special for his new club but the Essex bowlers had the ball moving, both through the air and off the seam, far better than Surrey did in their 40 overs. Ponting lasted just five balls before Napier jagged a ball into his middle stump leaving Surrey reeling on 38-3 and already well behind the required rate.
After Solanki was bowled by a good Reece Topley delivery to leave Surrey on 51-4 Azhar Mahmood and Gary Wilson put on a decent but ultimately fruitless 50 partnership. They decided on calling the batting powerplay in the 24th over but it was to little effect. Graham Napier bowled a quadruple wicket maiden, the wickets coming in four consecutive deliveries, to end the match as a contest.
A couple of overs later Napier added his seventh wicket and it was just a matter of time before the game was done. Surrey had recorded a laughably bad four over powerplay score of 13-5. David Masters took the final wicket to put Surrey out of their misery. It was, all in all, a completely dreadful performance.
It is hard to see where our season is going at the moment. The side seem completely devoid of confidence, strategy and ideas. Things aren't working for the club at the moment and something has to change. Chris Adams has been at the club for four and a half years but at the moment we are struggling to keep our heads above water. Given the amount of resource he's had at his disposal the returns are unacceptably poor. It is time for a change.
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Trying to make a bit of sense of my feelings after that. I think I have gone past feeling angry with Adams and those who let him carry on gradually destroying the county side.
I just feel a bit empty now - tonight there was a side pretty much made up of people brought in, and what is more mainly players past their best - not even brought in players who we can enjoy watching develop over the next few years. - if that works and it produces exciting winning cricket I guess you can get away with it for a while but even then it will be a team without a real county soul to it.
There is a team that plays its cricket at the oval but it is less and less a Surrey side rooted in the cricket played in the county and reflecting players developed mainly through the clubs in the county. What is more the cricket it plays is pretty uninspiring and mediocre.
Feels more and more like a team put together by marketing people with the short term aim of having a few names for the 20/20 posters might help persuade people who are only marginally interested in cricket to come and spend 3 hours getting drunk at the oval on a friday evening in the future.
This is not sustainable but is there anyone involved who has the understanding or commitment to get the soul back into Surrey?
Tonfedd
You're right, it was a very lopsided team tonight, a lot of 35+ players developed elsewhere, and they weren't even any good. It is disappointing that we don't have a team packed with Surrey players but more than that I just worry that its a team with a complete lack of direction. I think there is one man involved who can do that - Alec Stewart. If he can take charge and maybe persuade Graham Thorpe to come back we could be on to a winner.
Got to get rid of Adams. Try and lure Alec Stewart into the role.
No No NO - don't bring back former players, just don't work.. Remember butcher and butcher.. Agree it's time for Adams to fins employment elsewhere.
The only way one can explain Adams' behaviour since his appointment would be to postulate he has been trying to systematically destroy Surrey for a generation. Any home-grown talent has been forced to leave and he has signed a bunch of geriatric losers on massive salaries. RHB was the highest paid county cricketer and Surrey captain after only a dozen first class games and is clearly a mediocre talent with considerable personal problems. Gary Keedy currently has 3 wickets at 127 whereas Chris Jordan has 36 @21. Adams has consistently backed expensive losers for four and a half years, leaving a demoralised rabble with no allegiance to the Surrey cause happy to cash their pay cheques and put in abject performances on a daily basis. Enough is enough
Hi Potler
There's a lot of merit in what you say. We have made some terrible blunders in signing/releasing players and its dispiriting how un-Surrey this team is. There is some good youth coming through of course, Burns, Harinath, Meaker etc. but will they develop as fast as they could under Adams? I doubt it. The signing of Keedy is looking increasingly bizarre, especially on a two year deal.
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