Around the Grounds: Plays of the Day

Division One:

Durham set Warwickshire a gettable 354 to win after they managed to better their first innings score of 288 by a solitary run.  Imran Tahir looks likely to be the first man in the country to 50 wickets as he moved to 45 for the season with 6-69 - how Surrey could do with a spinner like him!  Di Venuto top scored for Durham with 92, Warwickshire had mustered 111 of those runs for the loss of three wickets at the close.  Troughton and Ambrose will need to shoulder much of the burden if Warwickshire are to reach the target.

In a bizarre coincidence, Yorkshire also finished the day on 111-3 having gained a 90 run first innings lead over Lancashire.  Lancs did a great job of clawing themselves back into the match, largely thanks to a first class best score of 88 from Kyle Hogg, while Adil Rashid picked up his first 5-for of the season.  Yorkshire lead by 200 runs and the game looks headed for a draw.

Division Two:

Middlesex's second innings never really got going and only Neil Dexter passed fifty as they reached 228 all out.  Gemaal Hussain continued his impressive season with three wickets and Gloucestershire's openers polished off the 45 runs needed in just 13 overs.

Leicestershire also wrapped up their win over Worcestershire inside three days.  Mitchell, Cameron and Gareth Andrew all hit 70s in Worcs second innings and in the end set Leicestershire a potentially tricky 182 to win.  However Will Jefferson, Paul Nixon and James 'Titch' Taylor saw them to the target only three wickets down.

In the balance

Today didn't quite go to plan for Surrey, the completed second innings of 253 was stuttering at best, 9 batsmen made it into double figures but only one, Andre Nel, made it past 30.  The result was a target of 408 for Derbyshire in comfortably over a day.

The number of overs is not a problem for Derbyshire, they have 9 wickets in hand and a hundred or so overs to get the remaining 272 runs tomorrow.  While yesterday morning the prospects of a Derbyshire win looked remote, Madsen, Rogers and Park have vastly increased that possibility.

A bowler down, Hamilton-Brown can only call on the services of two frontline bowlers - Nel and Tremlett.  The rest of the overs will have to be bowled by a combination of Batty, Younus, Afzaal and probably Hamilton-Brown himself.

We've been desperately unlucky to lose Linley completely, he won't bowl at all in the second innings apparently due to an injury to the arch of his foot (thanks to @karen_bradberry on Twitter for that one!), and for that reason the skipper probably would've wanted a bit more than 400 given the number of overs available.  Also hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the pitch doesn't look remotely dodgy at this stage.

Nel and Tremlett will want some bowler friendly conditions tomorrow morning and if we can nip a couple out quick, 250 runs with only four or five wickets in hand suddenly looks a lot more tricky for Derbyshire.  However, if Madsen and Park make it through the first hour unscathed, you'd have to say they should do it comfortably.

Having praised the balance of this side I can't complain that now we might not have the bowling, but that is largely down to rotten luck with an injury.  A defeat from here will really hit the confidence of the players, especially because they've done so much good work to get them into a good position.  I hope they come out fighting tomorrow morning, if they do that, we'll give ourselves a much better chance of turning Derbyshire over.  Come on the Rey!

Around the Grounds: Plays of the Day

Divison One:

After being bowled out for what looked a sub-par 288, Durham fought back well to polish off Warwickshire for 224, without Trott and Bell only ex-Surrey vice captain Rikki Clarke stood up with 68.  Wickets were shared around, Harmison picking up two and Callum Thorp four.  Durham ended the day 78 without loss and will look to score quickly to set Warwickshire a target.

A horror collapse against the legspin of Adil Rashid and the offspin of Azeem Rafiq saw Lancashire slip from 94-0 to 186-6 and turned what looked like a nailed on draw into a very probable Yorkshire win.  Rashid and Rafiq shared all six wickets between them and Yorkshire look increasingly a good all round package.

Division Two:

My suspicion that Middlesex's total of 236 was well short was confirmed when Gloucestershire racked up 404-8 on day two.  James Franklin, who was out in the 90s against Surrey earlier in the season, made it all the way to 99 before becoming one of Neil Dexter's three victims.  With their strong bowling attack a first innings lead of 168 already will have Gloucestershire eyeing up another win.

Worcestershire are just 34 runs ahead with six second innings wickets in hand against Leicestershire, but it could've been much worse, the Worcs top order collapsing again to 59-4 before Daryl Mitchell and James Cameron put on 109 to steady the ship.  Will Jefferson, Tom New and Jacques du Toit all scored 50s in Leicestershire's innings of 309, James Taylor failed with the bat having inexplicably not been picked for England Lions.

Ups and downs, but very good in the end

The Surrey of old, lets say, May 2010 might have let their heads drop when despite having been 81-6 Derbyshire clawed their way up to 218-6, thanks to a good counter-attacking 137-run partnership between Wayne Madsen and Lee Goddard, but the newer Surrey has a bit more about it.

You get the feeling that the string of victories, and convincing ones at that, in the Twenty20 Cup has given the players a new found confidence that is translating to better results on the field.  I hope I'm not getting carried away in saying that!

In the morning Chris Tremlett and Tim Linley had taken Surrey agonisingly close to full bonus points but Linley was last man out for 15 just 9 runs short of the 400 run target.  Linley made up for that though with a fantastic spell of bowling, 9 straight overs before lunch saw him take 3-13 before he returned to take one more straight after lunch.  Linley's improved massively over the course of this season, and could well be a key part of the attack if Andre Nel leaves at the end of this season.  Cruelly though he left the field part way through his 11th over, and I'm not sure he made it back onto the field, not a good sign at all.

Then came the Madsen and Goddard partnership, but Surrey fought back well.  The dismissal of the last four batsmen for 19 runs, Batty with three and Tremlett with one, gave Surrey a lead of 154.  The follow-on was available but with Linley being unavailable to bowl and with two and a bit days left in the game, Hamilton-Brown made the right call in not enforcing it.

Surrey ended the day 50-1, Hamilton-Brown having fallen to Groenewald for just four (he's not best used as an opener so the sooner Brown returns the better).  Ramprakash ended the day 17 runs short of the magic 1,000 run target for the season, he'll be keen to be first man there tomorrow morning.

I would think Surrey will be looking for another 180-200 runs, depending on how the pitch is looking.  That might seem overly cautious, but if they can collect those quickly that'll give them well over a day to see off Derbyshire for a second time.  That task will be tough if Linley remains unavailable, another reason that they'll probably want a bit target on the board.

Unfortunately one of our quicker scoring batsmen, Hamilton-Brown, is back in the hutch so it'll fall to Ramps, Afzaal and Younus to rack them up.  They're more than capable of doing that, and if they do it'll give us a massive opportunity to pick up a second Championship win of the season, and with Middlesex struggling in Bristol, it might just lift us off the bottom of the table!

Around the Grounds: Plays of the Day

Division One:

If I thought Surrey's batsmen failed to press home the advantage after getting set, Durham must feel even worse. Only two of their batsmen failed to pass 10 but just one, Ian Blackwell made it past 50, with 86 off 147 balls as they were all out for 288 inside day one.  Warwickshire will look to rack up 500 and hope to only bat once.

Similarly Yorkshire will have hoped to be in a better position than 379-8 after Lyth and Rudolph put on 166 for the first wicket, Lyth notching his third ton of the season in quick time, it won't be long before he's on the selectors radar I would imagine.  Glen Chapple picked off four of Yorkshire's middle and lower order to drag Lancashire back into the game.

Division Two:

Anthony Ireland continued his impressive form for Gloucester with 5-25 to finish off Middlesex, he's now collected 20 victims at 16 from just four matches.  The Middlesex total of 236 looks a bit below par and it was one a player who I've never heard of, Josh Davey, who gave it respectability with 61.  Toby Roland-Jones, who has appeared for Surrey Seconds before, is also in their side, it'll be interesting to see how he gets on with the ball tomorrow.   Good on them for blooding some youngsters in the absence of the likes of O'Brien, Morgan and Finn.

Worcestershire had a horror day again, collapsing all out for 175 with only Ben Cox and Gareth Andrew with a 40 and a 50 respectively gave them any sort of total.  Leicestershire used six bowlers and each of them picked up at least one wicket, Nathan Buck continues to pluck top order batsmen from the crease and returned 2-29 off 12 overs.

Surrey v Derbyshire - Day One

I think Surrey might feel they have missed out on a great opportunity to have put this game to bed today, they ended on 364 with one first innings wicket in hand, but it could have been so much more.

Hamilton-Brown promoted himself up to open in the continued absence of Brown and the temporary absence of Davies, and he appeared to have forgotten that Twenty20 is on a one week break, smashing 24 from 16 balls before getting himself out.  He'd given Surrey a cracking start, but although none of the top six who followed him failed, none of them really cashed in either.

Ramprakash was one of South African Tim Groenewald's five victims, he was clean bowled for 99, just one short of his 112th first class century, will getting off Nelson prove as tough as getting off 99 for Ramps?!  Afzaal showed a timely return to form with a well paced 73, Younus fell five short of a half century and Walters needed the tail to stick around with him to see Surrey past the 400 mark, but none of them did.

At various points in the day it seemed like we were really going to press home the advantage but we didn't, which is very frustrating.  That said, we're not in the worst position in the world and the closer Tremlett and Linley can edge us towards 400 the better.  On a further positive note, I think Adams has found a good balance with this side, Wilson the stand in WK-batsman at number seven and Gareth Batty at number 8 is about right (though he didn't do much with the bat today).  If Davies, Dernbach and Brown were available, which they both may well be the next time we play a four day game, I'd be very satisfied with a batting order along the lines of today.  Progress!

Mid-Twenty20 Championship break...really

Tomorrow morning Derbyshire and Surrey face off at Chesterfield, no its not a weird morning start for a Twenty20 match, its the start of a four day game.  After four weeks of non-stop Twenty20, and with six Twent20 fixtures still to be played, a County Championship game has been plonked into the fixture list.

It won't be easy for the players to readjust only three days after their last T20 blast, going from 10-an-over to 3 (or hopefully 4 or 5!) an over will be mighty tough, but do it they must.  The squad hasn't been announced, but since Jason Roy, Tom Lancefield, Matthew Dunn, Stuart Meaker and Laurie Evans have all been named in the Second XI squad to play in a game starting tomorrow, we can probably safely count them out.  In the case of Roy and Meaker this is particularly disappointing, especially given Dernbach's injury.

Steve Davies is in the England Lions squad for a game with West Indies A on Tuesday, so he won't play and there's a chance Gary Wilson might be playing for Ireland on Tuesday, hopefully he'll be excused, if he isn't I've no idea what we'll do for a keeper!  Given Davies spectacular form in the last couple of T20s, that's a particularly poorly timed Lions game!

Given that, I think we can probably expect a team along the lines of:

Harinath
Younus
Ramprakash
Hamilton-Brown
Afzaal
Wilson
Schofield
Batty
Tremlett
Nel
Linley

There's a couple of things to clear up here.  I presume Andrew Symonds will not play, it was my understanding that he's only signed for the Twenty20s.  If not his appearance in the middle order would strengthen the batting a great deal.  The game will be played at Chesterfield, a small ground which Symonds might enjoy!

The second issue is the reappearance of Afzaal.  This is more out of necessity than anything else.  With the Lancefield, Roy and Evans in the Seconds, I don't see how they can do anything but recall Usman.  Hopefully he'll regain some form and might even slot back in for the remainder of the T20.  If he doesn't play tomorrow, there might be grounds to question his future at the club.

Chris Tremlett may well be rested given that he's played all our T20 Cup matches, but I'm not quite sure who would come in with Meaker and Dunn otherwise engaged in the Seconds.  The team above is a little bit light on the batting front.  Younus is unfamiliar as an opener and isn't in great form (although his last four day innings was a good, unbeaten 77) and Wilson and Schofield are at least each a place too high at six and seven.

I hope some last minute amendments will be made to the squad which will hopefully shore things up a bit.  If they aren't made, I think we could be over-reliant on a couple of senior players to get us through the next four days.