No worse, but certainly no better

That's what it has come to, I don't feel that bad about Surrey today because we weren't a complete and utter shambles. To lose the final four wickets for seven runs inside the space of 19 balls wasn't a great start to the day, but the slow pace of Sussex's initial reply showed the deathly slow nature of the pitch.

Sussex lost wickets quickly to begin with, but innings from Yardy, Goodwin and Wright have built them a strong lead, and Surrey's bowlers haven't been able to stem the flow of runs in the same way Sussex's did. Where Sussex had four bowlers go at less than 2 runs an over, Surrey could manage only one (Dernbach - a good sign in itself). Batty and Schofield in particular were expensive in picking up a wicket apiece. Batty has managed just 5 maidens in the 63 overs he's bowled so far this year, being unable to stem the flow of runs does not bode especially well for him.

I can't claim to have seen it, but Cricinfo reports that Hamilton-Brown dropped Goodwin "badly" at slip, which by my calculation puts the cost of Surrey drops this season at around 220 runs...its only the second game!

Rao and Nel need to come out tomorrow morning and do a Rana Naved, i.e. finish off Sussex's innings rapidly. They currently have a lead of 73, anything over a hundred spells defeat for Surrey I fear.

Brian Lara and Surrey...no, seriously...

This story on the BBC has it that Surrey are considering a shock, and it really is a shock, bid for Brian Lara to play Twenty20 cricket this summer. As much as I believe Lara is one of the finest cricketers of his generation, nay one of the best ever, but the man is forty years old and hasn't played top level competitive cricket for some time.

Yes the likes of Warne, Hayden and Gilchrist are approaching forty years of age too, but they've at least kept their eye in with the IPL, and yet still in all three cases its clear that they aren't the players they used to be.

Surrey, and indeed county cricket as a whole ought not to be considered a vehicle for players to put themselves in the IPL shop window, that's what seems to be inferred by the BBC's story. Moreover, I'm just not sure this sends the right message - we all remember the last 40-something Surrey signed, and that ended in a 13 year jail sentence. I'm not suggesting Lara would be a failure of Lewis-like proportions, I just don't think it says the right things about the club.

Yes, Lara will bring in the crowds and might even sell a few shirts (I have to say, a Surrey shirt with Lara on the back would be nice...) and maybe that is part of the reasoning, but will he enrich our side? I seriously doubt that.

Now, if Lara was to be drafted in to fill a seriously large gap in our batting stocks for four day cricket, well that might elicit a different reaction!

Surrey: A challenge for my vocabulary

Some synonyms for "bad":

atrocious, abominable, awful, dreadful, painful, terrible, unspeakable, deplorable, distressing, lamentable, pitiful, sad, sorry, fearful, frightful, hopeless, horrid, crappy, lousy, rotten, incompetent, unskilled, mediocre, poor....

All of the above apply to Surrey's "bad" start to this county season. The loss to Derbyshire is well documented here, and elsewhere much to Surrey fans' shame, and as Surrey sunk to 15-3 today we could be forgiven for turning away in a mixture of disgust, shame and embarrassment. 15-3 became 85-5 before they managed to crawl to 199-7 (at a run rate barely over 2), just a point short of a single batting point. Of course if it takes them 14 overs to get that single (not inconceivable given today's funereal pace) they'll miss out on the point anyway. That's how bad it is - Derbyshire missed out on their final batting point because they hadn't reached 400 by the 110th over - Surrey will miss out on all but one because of their run rate.

Arun Harinath was the only player to pass 50, though when you consume 300 balls in making 62, you really ought to be making three figures, but credit where its due I suppose, at least he stuck around. Afzaal was bowled by Martin-Jenkins, I don't doubt it was in playing a stupid shot.

I just do not know where to look at the moment, our batsmen don't look up to the task, and I worry about an attack that will rely heavily on two spinners in April being able to take 20 wickets here. The performances in the latter half of last season and in the five days of cricket this season beggar belief, and are so far short of what we are entitled to expect I am unable to put it into words.

I can only hope that Rao Iftikhar will take to this pitch like Robin Martin-Jenkins did today, and cause Sussex the same sort of trouble they caused our batsmen.

Still no sign of Tremlett....money well spent.

The squad for the game at Hove has been announced on the Surrey website. On the plus side, Rao Iftikhar Anjum is in the side, at the expense of Meaker who was woeful at the Oval. On the down side, they still clearly don't see Tremlett can play a role in the longer form of the game. Oh and Michael Brown is still struggling with a combination of arm and shoulder injuries.

I don't really think its fair to the members to just give "workload" as the reason for his absence, and then not reference it at all in the interview with Chris Adams. I presume we're paying him a pretty penny, and not on a pay-as-you-play basis, I'd appreciate some sort of word on whether they see that he'll ever be able to play a four day game, whether it be as part of a four or five man attack.

Anyway, the squad (and what I think will be the likely team will be) is as follows:

Arun Harinath
Matt Spriegel
Mark Ramprakash
Usman Afzaal
Rory Hamilton-Brown
Steven Davies
Gareth Batty
Andre Nel
Tim Linley
Rao Ifthikar Anjum
Jade Dernbach

12th man: Chris Schofield

Without wanting to be too hard on the players, this is the worst of both worlds. A tail that starts at 7, and Andre Nel is a half decent number 9, but a number 8 he is not. And yet, despite having a five man attack, it doesn't look likely to take 20 wickets! Dernbach is neither quick or consistent enough at the moment to take bunches of wickets and Linley isn't a threat at all in my opinion. Hopefully Rao will add some extra bite though.

I can't help thinking that the extra batsman is what is required here. We need to stave off defeat, however negative that might sound, and our batting lineup doesn't look capable of doing that at the moment.

They murdered us, they flippin' murdered us

To quote the irrepressible David Lloyd, Derbyshire flippin' murdered Surrey over the past four days. In the battle of the Star Batsmen Carrying His Side's Hopes, Chris Rogers comprehensively outscored Mark Ramprakash 340-102. Not to say that Ramps wasn't brilliant, he was, but Rogers was brilliant-er.

Of the two bowling attacks, only a fool would look at the scorecard and suggest that Surrey had done a half decent job. The collective average of Surrey's bowlers? 43. Derbyshire's run rate across their two innings? 3.7, compared with Surrey's 2.8. We were comprehensively outplayed here, and Rogers fully deserved to come away on the winning side after a virtuoso performance with the bat.

Five of Surrey's top seven were clean bowled. I saw a hint of uneven bounce in the pitch yesterday, and that may have played a part, but it doesn't look good. You have to credit the Derbyshire attack, they bowled sensible lines and lengths, the spinners stopped the flow of runs (largely) and the wickets duly followed.

Surrey's bowlers on the other hand were woeful. Meaker and Dernbach in particular failed to keep the run rate down to any degree. The only bowlers to keep the run rate below three in their overs were Afzaal and Spriegel, and they only bowled 24 overs between them out of a total of just under 200 overs (taking four wickets in the process - only one fewer than Meaker, Linley and Dernbach combined).

This might seem like an odd proposal, but I would be tempted to go with a four man attack for the Sussex game, and it simply has to include Rao Ifthikar and Chris Tremlett. The reason for this? Well our top six isn't good enough to be picking up 400+ regularly. Aside from Ramps, and to a lesser extent Davies, no one looks like they're about to hang around, and let's face it even if Brown comes back in, he's not exactly Dravid-esque in his crease occupation. So an extra batsman is required. There might even be a case for Walters after Spriegel and Harinath's less than convincing performance. And I'd wager that Rao and Tremlett offer more of a wicket taking threat than Linley, Meaker and Dernbach combined - at least on the strength of this performance they do. I'm sure Dernbach will come back stronger, probably in the limited overs stuff.

I would suggest a top six of Brown, Harinath, Ramps, Afzaal, Hamilton-Brown and Spriegel. Davies slots in at seven which is where I've always liked to have the WK-bat, Batty is a very capable number 8, likewise Nel at number 9, Tremlett is no Chris Martin (not the Coldplay one) with the bat and then Rao.

There's a temptation to go right into the doldrums here and write off another season, and believe me I'm struggling to fight that temptation. Several of our players need to stand up and be counted at Hove - Ramps and Davies cannot be expected to carry this side all season.

Wait...is it still 2009?

Another day at the Oval, another upsetting performance from Surrey. Ok, it wasn't dreadful - Ramps' 109th first class hundred was impressive and Batty played well for his 65, but really Chris Rogers showed us all what a pitch this is.

Rogers has now collected 299 runs to himself on a pitch where all Surrey's 11 men could only muster 352. Take nothing away from Rogers, he's a class act, but Surrey have been found wanting throughout in this game.

To be fair, Surrey did a decent job in making it to 352, Nel's lively 37 proving important, but when the sides emerged after the innings break - Derbyshire already 99 runs ahead, plenty of runs were there for the taking. Nel and Dernbach were confusingly only given three overs each before the woeful Meaker was given a go. I understand he bowled ok yesterday morning, but in his spell today there were at least two four-balls an over, it was nowhere near the standard we ought to expect of our players.

Rogers merrily tucked in, as well he might, and Derbyshire now sit 260 runs ahead and the prospect of Rogers biffing a few quickly after getting his hundred tomorrow morning could mean a tricky few sessions for Surrey's batsmen.

In other news, Rao Ifthikar Anjum has now apparently arrived, visa issues cleared up, and he'll be available for the game at Hove next week. If I was Stuart Meaker or Tim Linley I'd be looking at making alternative arrangements next weekend. Rao ought to slip in to the attack and if available, Tremlett should too. Eight bowlers have bowled for Surrey in this game, with very little success - here's hoping that next time out fewer have a bit more success.

Derbyshire = good. Surrey = poor.

Day two of the new season and Surrey are well and truly behind the 8 ball at the Oval. Derbyshire battered their way to 451 thanks in part to a tasty last wicket partnership worth 51 off not many balls. Meaker eventually finished off the innings getting a tail ender out, surprisingly, by bowling full and straight. Well there's a surprise.

Harinath and Spriegel started deathly slowly, at one point they'd crawled to 11 off 11 overs, but they did at least keep their wickets intact. They both batted ok, Harinath looked composed for the most part and Spriegel while not fluent was grinding it out. From 44-0 Surrey blundered to 53-3, Spriegel got a very good ball but Harinath and particularly Afzaal got out to poor strokes. That brought skipper Hamilton-Brown to the crease who looked in decent nick, but Groenewald had him LBW after he'd scored just 9.

Ramprakash and Davies batted very nicely together and put on a century partnership before Kolpakker Peterson had Davies caught at slip, bringing in Gareth 'batting far too high at number seven' Batty. He survived, mercifully, to the close.

Surrey have a battle on here, Ramprakash basically has to save this innings single-handedly, and that won't surprise him or anyone else. Derbyshire bowled well, their seamers were very tight, Rogers (increasingly in my view one of the best captains in county cricket) rotated them well and they had a good tempo about them. Spin wasn't introduced until the 35th over and when he did come on Peterson was turning it nicely.

Surrey at 185-5 won't see this as the batting road that Chris Rogers made it look, but a draw is salvageable here. Again, not a great start to the season, chasing the game. It hasn't quite been a disaster, but a marked improvement is required.

Note: Everything else is frankly irrelevant today after news of Steve Finn's 9-37 against Worcestershire. Incredible effort from the young lad, 14-106 figures for the match. If he ever gets near that again he'll have done well. Here's hoping he carries that form through the season!