Oxford friendly provides chance for experimentation

Surrey are in Oxford this week to play the University side in a three day friendly. As is usually the case with friendly matches it provides a chance for resting some of the regulars and trying out some of the fringe players.

A 12 man squad has been named and a possible XI is below:

Rory Burns
Arun Harinath
Dominic Sibley
Jason Roy
Tom Jewell
Jack Winslade
Jon Lewis
Stuart Meaker
Chris Tremlett
Matthew Dunn
George Edwards

12th man: Michael Burgess

Given how little is known of the likes of Winslade and Burgess its hard to pinpoint what roles they will play. Given that Burgess is a keeper, and one that has batted fairly low down in the order in the few Second XI Championship games he's played, it seems likely that he'll be the one to sit out with Rory Burns taking the gloves. Winslade has played as an allrounder for the 2s up to this point but he may in fact come in below Lewis and Meaker in the batting.

The side above is not short of bowling. Tremlett, Meaker, Lewis, Dunn and Edwards would make a pretty good County Championship attack never mind for a friendly. Lewis, Dunn and Edwards will just be looking for overs considering how little they've played this season, while Tremlett and Meaker will probably be out in search of rhythm. It's entirely possible that Adams may elect to play Burgess as an extra batsman, as five bowlers plus two allrounders in Winslade and Jewell could be considered excessive against a university side.

The makeup of the top order will be interesting. Jason Roy, captaining in this game, opened the batting in the two most recent Championship fixtures. However with three more established opening batsmen in the side in Burns, Harinath and the prodigiously talented Sibley he may slip down the order. I would imagine the Oxford bowlers won't be relishing Jason Roy coming out to bat at number four anyway.

Oxford's most recent fixture against County opponents was at the start of May when they were comprehensively beaten by Worcestershire. But as we showed against Cambridge a couple of years ago, you can look very foolish indeed if you underestimate MCCU sides. The Surrey players will be looking to the game to get some runs under their belts and wickets in the bag but they'll need to approach the game sensibly.

This match has fallen at a pretty convenient time for Surrey. With Wilson away for Ireland's ODI series with Pakistan and Ponting not due to arrive until June, a friendly followed by a couple of low-key YB40 matches might enable the players to regroup. A renewed effort to arrest the slide towards a losing habit is needed.

Surrey fall to third successive defeat

Graeme Smith's been gone barely ten days but in that time Surrey have managed to string together three consecutive defeats across two formats. We now have just a single win to our name in 2013 and the season already has a depressing familiarity to it.

Today's defeat, to Lancashire in the YB40 competition, was a close run thing but it was a defeat all the same. Adams opted for a high risk strategy which involved packing the side with bowlers and batting the skipper at number seven. Gareth Batty won the toss for the third game in succession and elected to bowl. It was a slightly surprising decision given the turning nature of the pitch (Lancashire picked three spinners), but perhaps Batty had the Manchester weather and a Duckworth-Lewis chase in mind.

In any case his bowlers made it look a mighty fine decision as they reduced the Lancashire top order to rubble. Before ten overs were up Lancashire were four down as Surrey's three seamers, Dernbach, Lewis and Tremlett shared the wickets around. Tremlett was especially tricky to negotiate which is hopefully an indicator of an up-turn in his form.

Spin was introduced into the attack in the 13th over and Keedy made an impression with his first delivery back at Old Trafford, as he had Wayne White caught behind to leave Lancashire 59-5. Karl Brown was busy compiling an excellent innings and he and Gareth Cross put on 30 runs to steady the innings a touch. However Cross, Hogg and Newby then fell within 10 overs and with the home side on 125-8 Surrey were looking good to go top of their YB40 group with a win.

Brown and Stephen Parry had other ideas though and they put on 38 in six overs and the last three overs disappeared for 40 runs to lift Lancashire to 176. Special mention should be made of the figures of Tremlett and Lewis who returned 4-48 from 15 overs between them on a spinners pitch. Jade Dernbach meanwhile could only manage 1-49 from seven. Given that the pitch was taking substantial spin already, despite the low total Surrey would have known they had a tough chase ahead of them.

Not that you would've known that from the way Davies and Roy started the innings. The pair despatched the eight powerplay overs for 60 runs, largely without taking excessive risk and Davies in particular was timing the ball well. The asking rate had fallen to 3.6 runs per over and Surrey were cruising. Then Roy fell to the first ball outside the powerplay and what followed was the decisive period of the game. Surrey batted out the next 15 overs for just 32 runs, scoring just a solitary boundary and losing five wickets in the process.

Gareth Batty and Zander de Bruyn halted the tumble of wickets but continued to struggle against the spinners. The required run rate climbed inexorably towards seven runs per over. Surrey then lost four wickets for 12 runs in just over two overs to all-but end the contest. A six run penalty for Lancashire's slow over rate briefly raised hopes but ultimately Dernbach and Keedy were left with too much to do.

Given the respective positions of the two sides at various points, Surrey will be very disappointed with the performance today. Lancashire were reduced to 59-5 while we were at one stage 60-0. Lancashire's spinners bowled 24 overs and returned 6-69 while Batty and Keedy bowled 16 and took 4-65. The efforts of two players, Karl Brown - who scored 80 from 84 balls and Stephen Parry - who took 5-17, stand out in this game.

A defeat early in the YB40 is always tough to recover from because the groups are so tight, but there are more pressing problems at hand. Although Ponting and Ansari will be available before too long, there would appear to be a shortage of options at the club, or a lack of confidence to give those few that are available a try. Why, for example, was Tom Jewell dumped for this game when he featured in the rained-off game against Durham without getting a chance to bowl? Despite some hope from the performance of the bowlers of late, three defeats on the bounce and some very dubious batting leave a lot of questions unanswered. Surrey need to arrest this slide towards a losing habit, and they need to do it quickly.

Notts surge ahead on day two

Another full day's play, another dispiriting batting performance by a large proportion of the Surrey contingent. Nottinghamshire ended the day 24 for 1, a lead of 91 runs with two days remaining.

Surrey started the day well as Jade Dernbach took just three balls to remove Harry Gurney without adding to the overnight score. 274 all out. It was a massive relief that the Notts tail was not allowed to add to the already excessive accumulation from last night. The total wasn't out of sight but it nonetheless required some sensible batting from Surrey to remain competitive.

By and large, that didn't happen. Rory Burns got another good delivery early in his innings and was caught behind for four. He was joined just a few balls later as Luke Fletcher beat Jason Roy's unfortunately tentative forward defensive to clean bowl him. Surrey were 9-2 and already deep in trouble. Vikram Solanki completely misjudging a Fletcher delivery that kept a touch low didn't help matters as he fell leg before to leave his side 27-3.

The procession continued through the morning session and Zander de Bruyn was the next man out. With his score on nine he played at a Paul Franks delivery he probably could have left but presented the edge and was caught at second slip. 47-4 became 49-5 on the stroke of lunch as Steven Davies aimed an injudicious fling at a wide delivery going wider only to also be caught at slip.

With the side still 225 runs behind and half the batsman accounted for it will not have been an easy lunch. After the break Arun Harinath extended his long vigil, but not by long enough. He threw his bat at a decent delivery to give Ajmal Shahzad his first wicket. It was a waste as his 24 runs had taken him 104 deliveries and roughly two and a half hours to compile. Not to mention that Surrey were still 50+ runs shy of the follow on target. Gary Wilson and Gareth Batty gave a much better account of themselves as they put on a determined 81 run partnership to first see Surrey past the follow on and then towards a semblance of respectability. Their innings were ended just four overs apart as first Wilson was caught behind off Samit Patel for 49 and then Batty was stumped off the same bowler for 41.

With the score on 152 and only the bowlers to come we could have been forgiven for giving up hope. However a tail end that had batted so insipidly against Durham instead managed to cobble together 46 very useful runs today. By the time Jade Dernbach was caught by Franks off the bowling of Shahzad to end the Surrey innings the deficit had been reduced to 66. With the bounce varying on the odd delivery perhaps having to bat last was also worth 20 or 30 extra runs for Notts. Surrey were very definitely second best. It surely cannot be a coincidence that since Graeme Smith's departure the "soft" dismissals have made something of a comeback. The Notts bowling today was certainly disciplined, but a few of the batsmen will know they got themselves out.

The Nottinghamshire second innings began as the first had done...slowly. Just 19 runs came off the first ten overs and when Meaker was introduced into the attack in the 11th he made the breakthrough, bowling Alex Hales for 17. It was a welcome wicket and we're likely to need Meaker to have a significant say tomorrow to have any chance in this game. However with the lead already approaching 100 and Notts' best batsmen still yet to come, Surrey may need to rely on some Saturday rain to rescue them.

Surrey start well but Notts fight hard

The forecast rain failed to materialise and remarkably a full day's play was possible at Trent Bridge. The game is finely poised as although Surrey had the hosts on the ropes mid way through the afternoon, an evening rally brought them back into the game.

Confusion reigned at the start of the day as Surrey first released an XI featuring a seam attack of Dernbach, Linley and Tremlett before swiftly revising it to include Meaker over Tremlett. Surrey's Mark Church was at pains to suggest that Tremlett was not injured but simply not picked. Given that Andy Flower was in touch with Chris Adams when Tremlett was not selected for Surrey's first game its hard to imagine that Adams' mobile won't be ringing again soon. From Surrey's perspective it was a good call, all three of Meaker, Dernbach and Linley have bowled well and taken wickets at times this season. Tremlett, frankly, has not.

Gareth Batty duly won his second consecutive toss as captain and opted to have a bowl. Notts' stand-in captain, James Taylor, would also have bowled and his openers won't have been relishing the task at hand. Taylor was skippering his side because of the late withdrawal of regular captain Chris Read with a stiff neck. Remarkably this is the first game Read has missed for Notts since September 2006 - a run of 98 consecutive games.

The Nottinghamshire openers trooped out at 11am to face Linley and Dernbach and it wasn't long before one of them, Alex Hales, was tropping back in again. Dernbach, bowling the third over of the day, plucked Hales' middle and leg stumps out of the ground with a perfect yorker. It's not the first time this season that Dernbach has surprised a top order batsman with such a delivery, he also accounted for Somerset's Nick Compton in the same fashion.

Surrey's opening bowlers restricted Notts very well. Linley in particular bowled a remarkable spell of 10 overs on the bounce, conceding just 7 runs in the process and forcing the batsman to play regularly. After 25 overs Nottinghamshire were crawling along at barely two runs an over. When Meaker was introduced into the attack he maintained the pressure, a relief after his poor spell with the new ball against Durham. Indeed in his fourth over and just seven minutes before lunch he snuck a delivery through Ed Cowan's gate to clean bowl him. Both openers were gone with barely 50 runs on the board.

Michael Lumb resisted well through the morning and into the afternoon session but with the score on 83 Meaker was in action again as Lumb became his second victim. Captain Taylor was joined by Samit Patel and the pair began to score more comfortably. They put on 60 together before Patel edged a Tim Linley delivery to slip. It was a deserved success for Linley who frequently bowls well without taking the wickets his bowling warrants. At 143-4 Surrey had forced an opening and they took it...up to a point.

Riki Wessels was dropped before he had scored by Solanki at slip off Linley's bowling. However the damage was minimal as Meaker returned soon after to clean bowl Wessels for just one. Surrey continued to chip away and Linley bagged the crucial wicket of Taylor just a few overs later as he played on with the score on 168. Paul Franks, returning to the Notts side, could only last a further five overs before poking at a Meaker delivery to give the Surrey quick his fourth scalp.

Nottinghamshire went to tea on 185-7 and Surrey were in the ascendancy. However a valiant partnership of 66 runs between Steven Mullaney and Ajmal Shahzad gave Notts first a glimmer and then a full blown beam of hope. Shahzad, who famously hit a first ball six to help tie an ODI for England, was admirably restrained as he scored just 8 runs from 84 deliveries. By the time they were parted the score had reached 247. Mullaney was joined by Luke Fletcher and they added a further 18 quick runs to frustrate Surrey some more. Tim Linley then trapped the danger man Mullaney leg before for a well made 68 and the visitors again had their tails up. However the tenth wicket pair of Fletcher and Gurney saw out the final four and a half overs of the day to make the day even, or perhaps even put Notts slightly ahead.

The end to the day had a tedious familiarity to it. Nottinghamshire's eighth, ninth and tenth wickets have thus far put on 92 wickets and that may yet prove the difference between the two sides. Tomorrow is likely to be another cloudy and damp day, possibly with the odd rain break. Not conditions for batting (Edit: the forecast for tomorrow has improved somewhat - it may be significantly better than today!). Getting on terms in this game is going to be quite a challenge.

Squad named for trip to rainy Nottingham

Surrey's players have had just a single day between the end of the Durham game yesterday and the start of the Nottinghamshire game tomorrow. According to Chris Adams' post-game interview at the Oval, they have spent it training rather than resting - perhaps a variant of 'naughty nets' given their lacklustre performance in the five wicket defeat.

The weather forecast for the next few days is decidedly damp so the prospect of a result is receding by the hour. Nonetheless Chris Adams has named a squad of 13 for the trip to Trent Bridge:

Rory Burns
Arun Harinath
Gary Wilson
Vikram Solanki
Zander de Bruyn
Steven Davies
Jason Roy
Gareth Batty
Stuart Meaker
Tim Linley
Jade Dernbach

12th men: Jon Lewis, Chris Tremlett

Gary Keedy has been dropped but it is perhaps unwise to read too much into that. He had a bad game at the Oval, no question, but his name was always unlikely to feature in the XI for Trent Bridge. He is replaced by Jon Lewis and it is around him that the main selection uncertainty revolves.

At Trent Bridge last year Adams sprung something of a surprise in dropping newly-appointed captain Gareth Batty and playing Murali Kartik as the single spinner, with de Bruyn captaining in Batty's absence. There's an outside chance that Batty may take one for the team again, allowing Jon Lewis to fill the allrounder's slot. Alternatively if he's feeling very bold Adams could drop a batsman and opt for a five man attack, with Lewis or Batty at number seven, but that would be quite a gamble.

Depending on his recovery from "stiffness" before the Durham game Tremlett could yet make the cut, most likely coming in for Linley despite him having done nothing to deserve being dropped. Jade Dernbach will almost certainly return after being "rested" for the last fixture and despite Meaker's poor performance at the Oval he will probably be retained. On balance, I think the side above is most likely.

The batting order is of significant interest. Jason Roy manfully stepped into the substantial hole left by Graeme Smith at the top of the order but could only muster scores of 17 and 4. I am a fully paid up member of the Jason Roy fan club but I do not think he should be opening the batting. Not because he doesn't have the ability, but because in Arun Harinath we have a better option to do the job. Roy should slide down the order from where he can inflict damage after, hopefully, a solid start from the top five. Whether Gary Wilson, Vikram Solanki or Zander de Bruyn fills the number three slot is anyone's guess.

Nottinghamshire lie two places above Surrey in the table (though with a game in hand) having won one and lost two of their games so far. With England's first test starting this week they will mercifully be without Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann who took 16 wickets and scored 162 runs between them in Notts' previous two games. Not bad for your numbers 8 and 9. Not that their batting and bowling is a great deal weaker without them. James Taylor, Alex Hales, Australian opener Ed Cowan, Michael Lumb, Samit Patel and captain Chris Read represents one of the division's stronger batting lineups - both in terms of experience and talent. Their bowling, likely to be spearheaded by Harry Gurney and Ajmal Shahzad, is also of a high quality.

This is a huge test for Surrey, should the two sides manage to get out on the park for any substantial play. Morale will be at a low ebb having been beaten at home not much more than 24 hours ago, and lying in the bottom two after four Championship fixtures. The batsmen have so far been guilty of too many soft dismissals and the bowling attack has only fired in fits and starts. If everyone performs to their potential we are capable of matching and beating the very best, but up to this point in 2013, that just hasn't happened. We need it to start happening now.

Defeat for Surrey confirms poor season start

At the close of play yesterday anything other than a comfortable victory for Durham looked unlikely. There was always the lingering hope that a pitch that had misbehaved in various ways and at various times might produce an unlikely Surrey triumph, but it wasn't to be as the visitors ran out winners by five wickets.

Surrey knew at the start of the day's play that they needed to add at least 50-60 runs to even make the chase a competitive one. Wilson and Batty made a solid start to the day, accumulating 37 runs in 12 overs. The plus side was that the lead was pushing up past 150, but conversely the pitch didn't appear to be causing the batsman any grief. Batty's was the first wicket of the day as Ryan Buckley trapped him leg before for 27. Crucially Wilson lost his wicket just two balls later and without a run being added, and Borthwick's leg spin was starting to bite. At 201-8 the lead was only just past 150 and things were looking terminal.

Meaker and Linley put on 28 bonus runs in six overs and Surrey's all out total of 229 pushed the required total for Durham to 181, which although not huge would take some chasing. Scott Borthwick finished with a career best six-fer to go with Buckley's debut five-fer on day one.

Batty opted to open the innings with Tim Linley and himself, shielding Stuart Meaker from the new ball. There could be said to be some logic in the decision, given Meaker's poor figures in the first innings. However given that wickets were Surrey's only way of inducing a Durham wobble I'm disappointed that the captain didn't show more faith in his strike bowler.

Nonetheless Tim Linley did make an early breakthrough as Will Smith was caught behind off the sixth ball of the innings. Any hope of further inroads were put to bed by a watchful Borthwick and a positive Stoneman as the pair went to lunch on 39-1. They had two further sessions to tick off the 142 runs remaining.

Gary Keedy was again poor, he produced too many four-balls and wasn't able to tie the batsmen down. On a fourth day pitch on which spinners took the vast majority of wickets Keedy failed to bowl a single maiden. In the face of a small total that simply isn't good enough to get results at this level. Keedy is a fine professional who will not be found wanting for effort but he is clearly not in the best form.

Stoneman and Borthwick extended their partnership to exactly 100 runs before Batty grabbed his first wicket of the innings, Borthwick lbw for 42. But the back of the chase had been broken and only another 74 runs were needed with eight wickets in hand. It was not until the 33rd over that Batty turned to Meaker and lo and behold he produced a wicket with his fifth delivery, clean bowling the excellent Stoneman for 67. At the very least Meaker should have been introduced when the new batsman arrived, but to hold him back further seemed bizarre tactically.

If that was an example of poor tactics from Batty, the decision to introduce Linley back into the attack was inspired. Stoneman fell with the score on 126 and Benkenstein was out as a Linley delivery stopped on him just two balls later with the score still the same. At 126-4 and 55 runs still needed there was a glimmer of hope that a nailbiting finish was in the offing. However captain Collinwood and Ben Stokes put on a steady 30 run partnership to all but take Durham home. By the time Collingwood was bowled by Keedy less than 30 runs were needed and it would've taken something approaching a miracle to deny Durham.

Stokes was joined by Mustard and the pair took their side safely home without further loss. Ultimately an inability to keep the pressure up cost us in the fourth innings. Where across the previous three innings the run rate never topped 2.9, Durham's fourth innings run rate was heading towards four an over. A home defeat after three consecutive draws leaves us in the bottom two and a little devoid of ideas.

In this match Durham were the better side but there wasn't much in it. If we'd taken our chances at the right times, notably at 221-4 in the first innings, we could have been celebrating a win tonight. It is also fair to say that Durham's spinners, with all of 49 first class games behind them, were more effective as a unit than ours, with all of 402 first class games behind them. They ended the match with 14 wickets to Batty and Keedy's seven. Surrey's spinners took their wickets at 37 runs apiece, Durham's took there's at 18. Therein lies the difference between the sides. When you prepare a turning wicket you don't expect your North East visitors to show up and comprehensively out-bowl you. To give him his due, Batty did a very good job on the whole but he wasn't supported.

The next fixture, away to Nottinghamshire, comes hot on the heels of this one as it starts on Wednesday. Morale may be on the slide, we've lost Graeme Smith and now we've lost our first Championship game of the season. The two spinner approach will now surely be shelved for the foreseeable future and Jon Lewis may even come into contention for a spot in the next fixture. There's plenty for Adams and Batty work on with a quarter of the Championship season already behind us.

Regular wickets keep Durham ahead

Surrey face the prospect of a first result in four matches tomorrow, but increasingly it looks like it'll be the wrong result as rain brought an early end to proceedings with the home side on 164 for 6, a lead of 115.

The day began positively for Surrey as Gareth Batty collected his fifth wicket of the innings, trapping Ryan Buckley lbw to end the Durham innings. It was Batty's fifth five-for for Surrey, interestingly all but one (against Middlesex last year) of those have come in the first innings. Only seven runs had been added to the overnight total and Durham's lead stood at 49 runs. In the context of a low scoring game it was a handy advantage, but the fact that they would be batting last meant that it wasn't quite a decisive one.

Surrey had most of the morning session to bat through and in an ideal world they would've reached parity having lost no wickets. As it was when lunch arrived although the deficit had been whittled away, three wickets had fallen in the process. Roy was first to go as Thorp found a way between bat and pad, adding weight to the impression that he shouldn't be bearing the burden of opening the innings. Harinath was next to go, lbw to Wood for 11 before Burns fell in the same manner to Borthwick's leg spin.

That left Surrey effectively 16-3 at lunch and in a precarious position considering the tail's capitulation in the first innings. After the break the old hands Solanki and de Bruyn had some repair work to do. However they could only muster a 22 run partnership before Solanki fell leg before to Collingwood to a ball which kept very low. When de Bruyn fell, lbw again but this time to Borthwick and after a mini recovery with Davies, there was more sign of the variable bounce. While the wickets were damaging (the lead was only 89 when de Bruyn fell) Surrey will have been encouraged by the uneven nature of the pitch and de Bruyn himself can look forward to bowling more overs tomorrow.

Wilson joined Davies at the crease and as the last recognised batting pair their efforts were always going to be crucial. Davies was batting extremely well and looked set for a second fifty in the match before, just as he did in the first innings, giving his wicket away to Borthwick. In the first innings he missed a huge full toss to be bowled, this time he slapped a huge long hop straight to deep mid-wicket on 46. With the lead at just 106 Surrey were nowhere near safety.

Wilson and Batty made it safely to the tea break but only one delivery was bowled in the evening session before rain intervened forcing an early close.

A look back at the totals in this game tells the story that this one was there for the taking. We were 221-4 on day one but threw it away. We then bowled poorly at Durham in the evening and for the first half hour of day two, allowing them a crucial opening partnership of 88. We may yet prevail in this game, with a lead of 115 and with Wilson and Batty at the crease who are more than capable of extending that into winnable territory. But frankly we could and should be in a far stronger position but for some poor execution with bat and ball. With the forecast tomorrow indicating rain delays are unlikely, a fascinating full day's play awaits.