Surrey (H) 2026

[dazedpenguin]

Squad for the Surrey game tomorrow. Thain is back from injury, but Cox is away with England for quite some time.

Harmer, Akhter, Allison, Benkenstein, Bennett, Critchley, Das, Fernandes, Jones, Killeen, Pepper, Snater, Thain, Walter

[Crisp]

Bit confused with this squad.

Sam Cook bowled 4 overs and looked fit, this afternoon in the 2s v Middlesex at Garons.

Noah Thain fielded for 10 overs, dropped a catch and batted but did not bowl.

[Crisp]

Also Das was out to the first ball of the innings and Killeen is going no where with his ongoing performances.

[vim]

Chris Silverwood, was on the radio. Stressing that improvement is required in all areas. That should be achievable, as it surely cannot get any worse.

[dazedpenguin]

Essex won the toss and will bowl first.

Walter, Pepper, Allison, Benkenstein, Critchley, Thain, Harmer, Fernandes, Snater, Akhter, Bennett

[dazedpenguin]

And Surrey:

Roy, Evans, Philippe, Pope, Lawrence, Thomas, Clark, T. Curran, Jordan, Lawes, Topley

[vim]

One of the gamblers used a rude word for Thain, dropping that catch.

[nat]

I will say it again?Snater and Akhter must bat higher up.

[JasonP]

It would be nice if we could have been bothered to sign an overseas player for the rest of the comp.  That?s now Lynn and Phillippe that have smashed us round in the last two matches and we having to replace Mulder with Simon Fernandes.

Hard to compete with a Surrey side than can afford to have players like Roy, Evans and Jordan on T20 only contracts.  Thats certainly not an option for us.

We actually got the rate down after the powerplay to pretty manageable levels but we unfortunately lacked the quality from 5 down to do it.  Mulder and Cox in the team and it was really on.  I know we got close on the final scoreboard but we were never winning that once Allison and Walter went.

I?m not sure why Critchley is so bad with the bat these days in T20.  He played pretty well against Derby but has done nothing else for about 3 years.

The most annoying thing was Lawrence taking 3-28.  When was the last time Harmer had figures like that at Chelmsford?

[spirali]

Snater and Akhter must bat higher up

Been thinking that about Snater for years now. Has he EVER been tried up the order in T20, even once? Maybe he has, these matches don't stick in the mind, but if so  it must have been a real rarity. Really valiant effort from him and Akhter to take it so deep but the match was already over barring a miracle. Astonishing swashbuckling knock from Walter but we were torpedoed by the lack of runs from the rest of the top order. With Cox absent and Pepper going backwards we just don't have the firepower for that kind of chase. Plus our bowlers got absolutely blitzed again. At least it was a contest, unlike the Northants game.

Was amazed how many waist-high full tosses both sides bowled - they can't all have been attempted yorkers that came out wrong, so I presume this is the latest desperate ploy for bowlers in this format, along with bowling very wide of off stump which we've been seeing for a while now.

I'd like to see our younger players banned from attempting the reverse ramp/scoop - don't think a single one of those came off tonight.

[honkytonk]

It would be nice if we could have been bothered to sign an overseas player for the rest of the comp.  That?s now Lynn and Phillippe that have smashed us round in the last two matches and we having to replace Mulder with Simon Fernandes.

Hard to compete with a Surrey side than can afford to have players like Roy, Evans and Jordan on T20 only contracts.  Thats certainly not an option for us.

We actually got the rate down after the powerplay to pretty manageable levels but we unfortunately lacked the quality from 5 down to do it.  Mulder and Cox in the team and it was really on.  I know we got close on the final scoreboard but we were never winning that once Allison and Walter went.

I?m not sure why Critchley is so bad with the bat these days in T20.  He played pretty well against Derby but has done nothing else for about 3 years.

The most annoying thing was Lawrence taking 3-28.  When was the last time Harmer had figures like that at Chelmsford?

There is no money for a replacement.

As for Harmer vs Lawrence....Harmers never been lucky enough to bowl against us!!

[vim]

Chris Silverwood, gave another quote about working on certain areas. What is the betting, that these are improved and there is a deterioration in other areas that were perfect. So he has to play wack a mole, in working on those.

[dazedpenguin]

I don't see the point of playing Fernandes as a specialist number 8, other than to make up the numbers. It's a thankless task and maybe it would be better to push Snater or Akhter up and play Jones as another seamer. That would give Snater more time to bat and share out some of the pain for the seamers. Given that he played for the seconds, I guess Cook will be back for Sussex on Friday, so that will give allow them to take one of the seamers out of the firing line (and that's what it must feel like- Bennett and Akhter going for more than 15 an over last night).

Sussex, Middlesex, Hampshire and Surrey away to come. I think Essex need to win 3 of those to have a chance of qualification. If England aren't going to play Cox, they could at least release him to actually play some cricket. Or give him a central contract so Essex don't have to pay him (do the club get compensated when he's on England duty?).

[bwildered]

 Teams that concede over 200 plus rarely win the chase, due to scoreboard pressure and ten an over run rate .
You have to have a good start, a touch of luck swinging from the hip throughout. The final score looked closer than it was but the middle order was struck down by two ex Essex players Lawrence and Topley . Well at least Walter did what he threatens to do, but must do it more consistently.