Strange to win the toss and bowl at The Oval. We will see if it has been a good decision. We did alright here last year, up to the point when the umpires decided to get it over with and move the game on and give us a few 'Shockers'.

Henry Brookes 3 overs for 25. Well bowled.

With Brookes, the talk was always about his 'Potential'. How long does potential last because it seems to me he has moved backwards to the point that surely the management will say, "What have we got to do to get him to be consistent and an automatic choice". Even if you kept him for just 50 over games and T20, his economy rate does not justify it.

paulbear wrote:

With Brookes, the talk was always about his 'Potential'. How long does potential last because it seems to me he has moved backwards to the point that surely the management will say, "What have we got to do to get him to be consistent and an automatic choice". Even if you kept him for just 50 over games and T20, his economy rate does not justify it.

Brookes looks like he lost a few mph after that bad injury and pace was his best attribute. Line and length is all over the place. The captain doesn't really want to throw him the ball because the batsmen can score freely.
Unless our new-ish bowling coach can work wonders its best for everyone if he moved on to a second division county. He did quite well at Derby on loan.

No issue with him in white ball cricket, he consistently gets wickets and I don't think he goes around the park anywhere near as often as is made out, he was our most economical bowler in the Blast 1/4 final for one example. And I thought he had a decent one day cup, 8 wickets in 28 overs in total, you take that.

In red ball though he simply has to cut out these short wide deliveries, just can't set fields for him when he's like this. He sometimes bowls 3 four balls an over.

I think it is in there though, easy to forget he's only just turned 24, 23/24 year old OHD wasn't pulling up many trees, and he has had some bad injuries.

He's got it all to do.

paulbear wrote:

Strange to win the toss and bowl at The Oval. We will see if it has been a good decision. We did alright here last year, up to the point when the umpires decided to get it over with and move the game on and give us a few 'Shockers'.

Ahhh yes the Hain and Burgess dismissals. When you can remember the decision, you know it’s an absolute shocker.

I can't forget them dismissals.

And to echo what's being said about today, why have we won the toss and elected to bowl on one of the biggest bat first grounds in the world?! I remember 2017 when Belly won the toss at the Oval and did the same, think Surrey went in something like 290-2 after day 1! Why are we like this?!

Cannot see any reason to bowl first. Even if the overhead condition are telling you to bowl and the pitch looks a little green, it doesn't always mean anything. We could be staring at 500+ tomorrow. Rhode4s did this at Taunton, not sure if it was last season but they made loads and we lost. Perhaps Rhodes has a touch of the 'Grant Elliott's', "we'll have a bowl" mentality.

Perhaps they had a team meeting and said, we fancy a couple of days in the field skip? It looked an awful decision at 10.40 when my wife said “they won the toss and decided to bowl” I said “please tell me that your joking”

A wife would never joke about something as important as cricket.

I suspect on the winning the toss and bowling front, Rhodes and Robinson probably thought it looked a good batting deck, that will only get better, but we need to force a win. The best way to do that is bowl them out cheaply, and the most likely time to do that is the first day, when the pitch is probably at its most helpful.

Looking at that Surrey batting, they bat long, and we probably thought even if we post 500+ and they get out cheaply first innings, they have enough in terms of batting and we don’t have the firepower in the bowling (as we saw at Notts) to get them out following on. I also wonder if they thought the batting was strong enough to post 500+ batting first against Roach, Worrall, Overton and Lawes.

Won't be disappointed not to play Surrey again this season. Depressing how strong the outfit is and how far away they are from all the other sides - surprised theyvarent further ahead in the league. Its a good fight for second spot.

Apart from this whinge, the toss I can see what they were thinking. The only cloud in London for this game was the first hour of this match and the pitch was green. Just got that wrong. From the little I saw of the feed the difference between Hasan Ali and Henry B is massive. Latter was erratic both sides of the wicket when I saw him, like others I'm not too sure where he goes from here but I think it can be redeemed.

Similar case with the batting. We lose two batsmen we look a lot weaker. Get Yates back things look more optimistic. Basically let's hope for a high scoring draw here and see what the next game brings.

Finally - is it possible to have two overseas players now? If only re getting a seamer back...

Good mornings work so far.

Surrey go from 343-4 to 396 all out.
Barnard has looked like a different player since the One Day Cup started. Excellent performance by him.

Unfortunately we then bat....

Yet another batting collapse - 39-5!!!!!!

Has the wicket changed dramatically overnight!!?

At what point does Tony Frost start being questioned?

Roach and Worrall are absolutely lethal arent they?

Well, a few of us questioned Rhodes' decision to bowl first and now a score of nearly 400 puts us under pressure. Even if we batted first and got 300,we would be in the game but the pressure our batsmen seem to feel in the face of a big score, has come back again. For whatever reason, Rhodes wanted to bowl first, it was wrong, even if he was looking further ahead in the game, if a pitch says 'Bat', then you bat and if it is The Oval, it is even more apparent.

What does Benjamin offer? Was poor in the T20, barely played and did nothing in the Hundred so didn’t play for us in the one day cup, when he does play red ball, he inevitably fails. Think I’ve seen him get one red ball score and it was a slow, flat, threatless old Trafford pitch that everyone scored runs on.
I know he’s leaving but would much rather Ethan Brookes played.