Well, unless we have a good first and second wicket opening partnership, this one looks like it's gone. All those nice 20's and 30's from the first innings will have to stretch a bit more in our second innings - As long as the umpires don't make a mess of things like they did on certain first innings dismissals.

The Miles injury really hurt us in that session.

I wonder if Keith Barker is available for a loan?

Big session coming up now...

GerryShedd wrote:

Melinda Farrell was quite rightly getting some praise on here for her commentaries recently. I'm sure she will be proud that she has now achieved the ultimate recognition - being featured on Private Eye's Commentatorballs for saying (allegedly): "There's a TV installed in the men's Portaloos so that you can watch the live stream."

Couldn't agree less. I think Ms Farrell is a terrible addition to WMs output. Shrill, self-regarding and repetitive compared to the understated expertise of Richard Wilford, Mike Taylor and Clive Ekyn. I get that she's a credible print journalist but she's a terrible addition to the county's live stream.

Roach always seems to bowl really well against us, game over.

Really good bowler, he's overpowered us here, what a signing. Not a lot to say about this other than that fact that there are levels and Surrey are a good few levels above us.

We badly, badly need a few of our injured bowlers back. At 11.30am this morning we're right in the game, no Miles at first change killed us though and the runs Smith and Abbott added put us right under pressure.

Agreed, Surrey simply have a better squad than us.

We are missing some key bowlers for various reasons and our 5 for bowler in the match got injured.

I do think it’s a big season for Bethall and Mousley, we really need them to step up and contribute more regularly.

The injury to Miles could have cost us 100 runs in their first innings

Streetly_Bear wrote:

Agreed, Surrey simply have a better squad than us.

We are missing some key bowlers for various reasons and our 5 for bowler in the match got injured.

I do think it’s a big season for Bethall and Mousley, we really need them to step up and contribute more regularly.

Yeah was thinking when he got out Mousley could be under a little bit of pressure if he doesn't get a score in the next 2 games.

Exiled Bear wrote:

The injury to Miles could have cost us 100 runs in their first innings

And was self inflicted. Crazy really it was the night watchman!

I suppose we are unlucky to play Surrey without the kookaburra, at least five bowlers, and with good weather but the best side will have won the match!

I'm not gonna begrudge a lad celebrating his 5fer!

I’ve got far more issue with an overseas who has taken 1 wicket in 3 innings so far, than a bloke celebrating a 5 wicket haul.
We seem to have developed a habit of signing poor performing overseas on short term deals.
I look at the likes of Elgar, Roach, Seales, Abbott, Pujara, Lyon (Aussies screwed Lancashire on this one), Young, Nathan Smith, Holder, and theres others too, there’s plenty of players around who are of the talent required. Think the shortest stint amongst those is the first 7 games. Which is standard now.
Why are other counties beating us to the premier talent?
Then when it seemed like Hassan was back in consideration after he was picked for the Pakistani camp, get on the phone and get a strong back up. We seem content to blame fitness, bad luck and age, rather than being proactive about it.
I bet we’re paying Garton plenty, but T20 only, not looking a good option right now. Same sort of thinking that results in us each year relying on Norwell to be fit, which he never is.

It’s a recurring theme with overseas players nowadays, it most certainly is not isolated to Warwickshire.

I remember Farbrace saying in the past that we had Pujara all lined up and then he gets an IPL deal for the first time in a decade so we missed out.

Pakistani players seem to be in a constant state of flux due the constant state of flux with their board. You can’t blame them for taking an international opportunity if it suddenly presents itself, it may well be the last one they get.

The Aussies pick and choose who, how and when players get selected even when they are not established.

The best West Indian players tend to gravitate towards the IPL and the franchise circuit because the money offered is so much more than they can get anywhere else.

The best overseas players in the CC in recent years have been where counties have a good relationship with the player and they come back year after year. Think Roach, Abbott, Abbas etc.

Sometimes it feels a bit of a waste of time, especially for players on short term deals who are completely unproven in this country.

This remains a really difficult season to read. For the first couple of days, we competed well and I was feeling quite upbeat. Then it all fell apart and we ended up crushed. At least we don't have to play Surrey again this year.
We've had some surprisingly strong batting performances but are yet to register a win. With Essex up next, that's not likely to change soon. I think we could find ourselves struggling to stay up this year.

Streetly, just saying it can’t be helped, and it’s difficult nowadays due to the reasons you’ve pointed out, don’t account for the fact other teams are doing it successfully. And have been for years in the same circumstances.

It’s very true, these days players so rarely stay the whole season. But teams can effectively plan around this. To me it’s a wider issue of recruitment and squad make up.
As supporters we should be asking why are other clubs building relationships? Why aren’t we thinking let’s get a guy in who might be able to come back next year or the year after? Why repeatedly do our overseas players not perform?
Are we not reaching out to the right people? Are we looking in the wrong places? Do our DoC and coach not have good enough contacts, or aren’t convincing enough? Is it about money?

Then you can ask why are we seemingly building the attack around the most injury prone player I’ve ever seen, and two guys that are both in the last couple of years of their careers? We’re signing bowlers but to only play white ball. It’s just clear that behind the scenes in terms of squad building, that it’s not being done to the same standard as other sides.
It needs to be addressed rather than just dressing it up as unlucky. There’s a phrase about luck being about preparation. It works in reverse, if you’re not as well prepared in terms of how your squad is built, you’re more likely to be unlucky too.

And the bowling needs help desperately. Surrey went from 332-7 still behind to a lead of 120. Out in the field in the heat for 110 overs, and then against a top class well rested attack.

To be fair I think we have developed that relationship with Hassan, he seems to love it here. And it is bad luck that someone else in Pakistan’s squad got injured, meaning that he got called up to sit on the bench, whichever way you look at it.

But 1 piece of bad luck results in an understrength bowling attack?
Yeah, fair enough it’s bad luck Hassan got called up.
But it’s not bad luck that they didn’t already have a second overseas signed for the start of the season. It’s not bad luck they once again signed an overseas on short notice who’s underperforming.
It’s not bad luck that they signed 2 bowlers this off season but they both only play T20.
It’s not bad luck that they’re reliant upon a hugely injury prone player. It’s not bad luck they released a homegrown bowler who now starts for Kent.

1 piece of bad luck shouldn’t result in essentially having 3 fit first team seamers, 2 now Miles is injured.

It’s a series of decisions that the club makes. Why is it other clubs seem to see this, but we don’t?

Underperforming academy too re. bowlers.

Truth is we've relied so heavily on recruitment for seam bowlers for such a long time now because we've had such a lack of seam bowling talent coming through our own pathway. And recruiting from other counties and overseas is so tricky, sometimes we've got it right, sometimes we've got it wrong.

Craig Miles, don't mean to pick on him, he's bowled ever so well on day 2 at the Oval but goodness me he's had some poor games for us and he's definitely had plenty of chances. Into his 6th season with us now, doubt a locally developed academy lad would have been given such an amount of opportunity.

Bowling coach situation hasn't helped either. That was such a huge blow when Pop Welch left, just look at what he did with OHD. Imagine what he might have done with Brookes, Garrett or Johal?

I maintain it was weird that we let Brookes, Garrett and Johal all walk during the same off season with the majority of our other seamers being over (well over) 30 years old. Not saying any of those 3 would have made a difference here but were looking rather short pretty quickly at the moment...

Re. squad make up. Olly Stone should still be here, even if he only plays 4 or 5 red ball games a season our chances of winning 2 or 3 of those games increase immeasurably because of him. We're crying out for somebody with a bit of pace (is Che Simmons worth a look here?). We let him walk because we only offered him a white ball only deal.

Talking of recruitment and white ball only Moeen Ali, Garton and Gleeson will all be on serious money. Money that i don't think would be sanctioned on the 4day side somehow. Since start of 2022 the messaging from the club has been clear: Blast is priority.

Comes back to the naked truth though that we don't have any seamers coming through the academy to bolster the squad. Most other counties have homegrown seamer(s) in there XI, were always scratching around and trying to poach from other counties. Would imagine we'll be bringing in somebody on loan this week...

Also, Norwell this Norwell that etc, it's been so long now since he played any cricket its almost impossible to say whether he'd be any good or not at this point.