Rayb wrote:

I got to around the 50% mark, I cannot listen to the man. Since when, in the middle of a hot spell, do Oval wickets become 250/300 tracks? That is not honest. Claiming that we were out bowled and out batted is stating the bloody obvious, but where was the out managed observation by deciding to bowl after winning the toss? And I refuse to accept that it was Rhodes decision alone.

I'm not Robinson's biggest fan but to be fair to him there has only been one score over 400 at the Oval all season, made by Australia against India. It surprised me too.

Agreed, your previous post got me thinking, it's a valid point re. Homegrown v recruitment.

Looking at our batters averages for this seasons county championship, Hain, Yates and Mousley are our top 3 guys all 50, 40 and 35 then we have Burgess, Rhodes, Davies and Barnard all averaging mid 20's.

It's worth pointing out that our better performing batters are all homegrown and 2 of those 3 are still young and improving whilst they all offer in all 3 formats. The other 4 are recruits from other counties, all senior players and all falling short with the bat. I do acknowledge the quality of Burgess keeping and Barnards bowling.

Recruitment ain't necessarily the answer people are making it out to be though.

No I definitely agree, you can look at Essex and Yorkshire too. I was just responding to the post about Durham producing quicks and relating it to how we don't.

We normally have several batters in our XI who have come through the academy, we've improved a lot there. 3 out of the top 5, Yates, Hain and Mousley sometimes Bethell (Lamb in previous seasons) have been academy products. We've got 3 keepers in the academy at the moment who all have a decent chance I feel in Maddy, Smith and Dandy (I think he could be the pick) and we have spinners in Wylie and Taz Ali who have shown some encouraging signs.

I feel we're a little light on seamers though and that's been the case for a long, long time now.

I listened to it. He's not wrong is he? Think some people had made their minds up before he even spoke.

He hasn't said that. Are you directly quoting him there?

I have been quite critical of Robinson's interviews in the past, think he's been a bit mean spirited at times but he's been OK here to be fair to him. He's being honest.

We won't be as good as Surrey next year, anyone who thinks otherwise is in absolute dreamland. Its going to take time.

mad wrote:

Not sure it's possible to get two overseas of the requisite standard anymore. We'd probably have to get two for the first half of the season and two different overseas players for the back half

Ethan Brookes should clearly have been selected for the Surrey game

Agreed, getting one quality overseas is hard enough, so two, with the international cricket calender the way it is and franchise comps etc is going to be extremely difficult.

Re. that Robinson interview. I'm not his biggest fan but I think he's spoke ok there, not sure what else he can say under the circumstances.

And why do we produce so few?!

We've brought some decent homegrown batters through fairly consistently and now we seem to have some keepers and a couple of spinners. Seamers/quick bowlers though? We don't bring many through. Woakes aside who was the last academy seamer to take 100 first class wickets for Warwickshire? Naqaash Tahir? I'm potentially missing someone obvious. We've had a few with potential go by the wayside Tom Milnes, Recordo Gordon etc and it would appear Johal and Garrett are going the same way.

Does Mickey Arthur still have the duel role with Derbyshire and Pakistan?

Roach and Worrall are absolutely lethal arent they?

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?!

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.

Surrey

Sibley
Burns
Patel
Smith
Foakes
Steel
Clark
Overton
Lawes
Roach
Worrall

Won the toss elected to bowl...

Brathwaite
Rhodes
Benjamin
Hain
Mousley
Barnard
Burgess
Briggs
Brookes
Rushworth
OHD

No Davies or Yates (ill) tomorrow.

Bethell and Norwell out for the season.

Benjamin in line to play.

Rushworth back. Braithwaite available.

Has signed

Can't recall any 1 year extensions this year but to echo what has been said previously we have indeed got quite a few senior players out of contract end of 2024.

And we're never very good with contracts, every 2 or 3 seasons we seem to have good players going into the remaining 12 months of their deal whilst we give out long term security to fringe players. Craig Miles signed a 3 year deal back in October, nice lad and all, willing trier, but he did well to get that.

Cox is a good get for Leicestershire. I wouldn't have had him over Burgess though and we have decent keepers coming through the academy.

Michael Burgess has signed on for next season.

Agreed.