Surrey v Hants

[Weston Saint]

Surrey won the toss and put Hampshire in.

Shoaib Akhtar playing for Surrey. Brown in for Adams and Tremlett in for Balcombe

19-0 of 4.4 overs

[Leicestersaint]

116 off 39 overs - rain stopped play. I'm amazed they got 39 overs in.

[stevegrant]

116 off 39 overs - rain stopped play. I'm amazed they got 39 overs in.
Likewise.

I'm only a few miles from the Oval and it's been grey and grim all day.

[Weston Saint]

Excellent. 427-6 of 121 overs - max batting points and season best scores from Dawson, Pothas and Dimi

[stevegrant]

Excellent. 427-6 of 121 overs - max batting points and season best scores from Dawson, Pothas and Dimi
Dawson's best score is 38?! Are you sure?

[Weston Saint]

Dawson's best score is 38?! Are you sure? Yep for Hants 1st team it is. In the Championship I should add

[Weston Saint]

Dimi out for 99, 451-7 (125 overs) Pothas 130no

[stevegrant]

Tremlett gone first ball.

Surprised we haven't declared now, given that Surrey need 9 wickets to get 3 bowling points, and we've already got the maximum batting points.

[Leicestersaint]

Blimey - Hampshire can bat!

[stevegrant]

Blimey - Hampshire can bat!
This is the Oval, remember... :D

[Weston Saint]

Tremlett gone first ball.

Surprised we haven't declared now, given that Surrey need 9 wickets to get 3 bowling points, and we've already got the maximum batting points.


With such a big score and Surrey so far behind I think they have decided that 1 more point for Surrey bowling will not mke a difference. They must take the 9th wicket in the next 1.2 overs as the cut off is 130 overs.

[Leicestersaint]

It is now time to declare and take 3 wickets before close of play ...

[saintwarwick]

Blimey - Hampshire can bat!


This is the Oval, remember... :D

This is Hampshire, remember... :D

[Berkshire Saint]

Was there today. Great performance but a shame we didn't have a dart at their opening bats before the close. Surrey really do look an awful side, no surprise to see them bottom.

[Fowllyd]

Play due to start today at 12:55, according to Cricinfo.

Why the hell didn't Dimi declare when Tremlett's wicket fell yesterday - or even just when we reached 450? We'd never lose from there, but we'd have given ourselves a chance of bowling them out twice. As it was, two wickets fell at 451 but we carried on batting - I really can't see what was achieved by that.

[stevegrant]

Not an awful lot of chance of bowling them out twice at the Oval in two days, to be honest, particularly with the weather forecast predicting more rain and bad light.

From the perspective of "must not lose", it makes total sense to keep batting as it reduces the amount of time Surrey have to win the game. They have to win to stand much chance of staying up, whereas we only really need to avoid defeat. There's no chance of a result, so the maximum number of points we're playing for is 12 (5 batting points which we've already got, up to 3 bowling points for taking 9 or 10 wickets in the first 130 overs of the first innings, and 4 points for the draw). That would put us on 150. A handful of points in the final game against Nottinghamshire should see us safe.

[Leicestersaint]

Not an awful lot of chance of bowling them out twice at the Oval in two days, to be honest, particularly with the weather forecast predicting more rain and bad light.

From the perspective of "must not lose", it makes total sense to keep batting as it reduces the amount of time Surrey have to win the game. They have to win to stand much chance of staying up, whereas we only really need to avoid defeat. There's no chance of a result, so the maximum number of points we're playing for is 12 (5 batting points which we've already got, up to 3 bowling points for taking 9 or 10 wickets in the first 130 overs of the first innings, and 4 points for the draw). That would put us on 150. A handful of points in the final game against Nottinghamshire should see us safe.

Surely this is a rather negative approach - not much chance of losing once we reached 450 but a much better chance of winning had we bowled at them last night. I am sorry to say that Dimi's captaincy does not stand up well in comparison with his predecessor.

Surrey are 119 for 3 at the moment.

[Leicestersaint]

124 for 4

[manji]

143-5.Lets get that git Ramprakash..............

[Fowllyd]

Not an awful lot of chance of bowling them out twice at the Oval in two days, to be honest, particularly with the weather forecast predicting more rain and bad light.

From the perspective of "must not lose", it makes total sense to keep batting as it reduces the amount of time Surrey have to win the game. They have to win to stand much chance of staying up, whereas we only really need to avoid defeat. There's no chance of a result, so the maximum number of points we're playing for is 12 (5 batting points which we've already got, up to 3 bowling points for taking 9 or 10 wickets in the first 130 overs of the first innings, and 4 points for the draw). That would put us on 150. A handful of points in the final game against Nottinghamshire should see us safe.


Surely this is a rather negative approach - not much chance of losing once we reached 450 but a much better chance of winning had we bowled at them last night. I am sorry to say that Dimi's captaincy does not stand up well in comparison with his predecessor.

Surrey are 119 for 3 at the moment.

I agree - Surrey had no chance of a win once we'd scored 450 on the second day. But they're 167-7 now - Ramps still there unfortunately, but their tail looks as long as the Loch Ness Monster's to me. Come on lads!

[John B]

143-5.Lets get that git Ramprakash..............

Dont you mean Judas

[Leicestersaint]

I agree - Surrey had no chance of a win once we'd scored 450 on the second day. But they're 167-7 now - Ramps still there unfortunately, but their tail looks as long as the Loch Ness Monster's to me. Come on lads!

167 for 7 seems to underline the point that this is a match we could and should have won - maybe we still can but a more sensible declaration might have enabled us to take a few wickets on Wednesday afternoon and increased our chances of a win that would put us safe.

Let's hope the weather is better tomorrow ... and we get that win!

[saintjinksie]

167 for 7 seems to underline the point that this is a match we could and should have won - maybe we still can but a more sensible declaration might have enabled us to take a few wickets on Wednesday afternoon and increased our chances of a win that would put us safe.

Let's hope the weather is better tomorrow ... and we get that win!

we should have declared on 400, but we're not used to getting that many runs so we didnt know what to do.

[Leicestersaint]

206 for 9 with Shoaib holding us up.

[Dark Sotonic Mills]

210 all out. Follow on surely as night follows day.

Yep. 0-0 after 2 overs

[Leicestersaint]

23 for 1 - looking good.

[stevegrant]

Interesting... according to the BBC scorecard, Surrey have sent James Benning in at 3 instead of Ramprakash. Not entirely sure I can see why...

[Dark Sotonic Mills]

And Benning is out. Not really troubling the scorers either. Ramprakash in but we need Newman out.

[stevegrant]

Dimi currently has figures of 7-6-1-2 :shock:

[saint1977]

Interesting... according to the BBC scorecard, Surrey have sent James Benning in at 3 instead of Ramprakash. Not entirely sure I can see why...

Given he's just got out cheaply I share your confusion Steve! Ramps is the key player to get out if we are going to force a victory. I can't understand Surrey though, not only have they brought in 2-has beens in Akhtar and Tudor but they gave Hants a great pitch to bat on when they need a result. If I were Alan Butcher, I'd have told the Groundsman - "find us the most worn and used pitch you can on the square" and then played 2 spinners and the quicks would have had uneven-ish bounce. OK, you might struggle Vs Tahir and even a worn Oval pitch would give you a good chance of 300+ but if they didn't win it was game over anyway - not that I care from a Hants perspective but counties are a strange bunch.

[saint1977]

And Benning is out. Not really troubling the scorers either. Ramprakash in but we need Newman out.

Newman is playing strokes which gives us a chance.

[Dark Sotonic Mills]

Newman is playing strokes which gives us a chance.

No sooner posted than he is gone.:D

[Dark Sotonic Mills]

Dimi currently has figures of 7-6-1-2 :shock:

err, you mean 8-6-2-3 don't you...:D

[stevegrant]

err, you mean 8-6-2-3 don't you...:D
No, I actually mean 9-6-10-4 :D

[Leicestersaint]

75 for 5 - come on Hampshire we can win this!

[Dark Sotonic Mills]

75-6 Surrey Suicide Squad to the fore.

[Leicestersaint]

Time for Tahir?

[Weston Saint]

Blimy just got in and found Surrey 90/6 If the rain holds off we should win.

[TopGun]

122-6. Come on...

[Leicestersaint]

126 for 7

[stevegrant]

139/8... resistance over, perhaps?

[saint1977]

126 for 7

139/8 with just 10 and 11 to come. Tremlett is cleaning up the tail beautifully after Dimi's mean spell accounted for Surrey's top order. Get Tahir on at the other end to bowl at Shoaib, he might hit him for a six but Tahir will get rid of him as Shoaib will play shots, can't see him blocking the crap out of it to save Surrey somehow. Collins is a rabbit as well.

[Leicestersaint]

What a great result - and we go top (unbelievably!).

[manji]

Fantastic result !

[Weston Saint]

Overjoyed. What a turn around to our season

[saint1977]

What a great result - and we go top (unbelievably!).

Get in! After the awful start, this is far,far more than we could have hoped for. The announcement of Terry's departure may be sheer coincidence but it does correlate with a massive surge of good results.

[Leicestersaint]

Ther do seem to have been some dressing room problems but the arrival of tahirseems to have been a big influence.

Let's hope Saints can now take a leaf out of Hampshire's book and start winning.

[TopGun]

What a turn about... Should be top flight cricket next year no problems now.

[stevegrant]

Current table, including Somerset's draw with Durham:

1. Hampshire 15 160
2. Somerset 14 159
3. Durham 14 157
4. Nottinghamshire 14 156
5. Kent 14 147
6. Sussex 14 141
7. Lancashire 14 135
8. Yorkshire 14 135
9. Surrey 15 120

Incredibly unlikely that we'll get anywhere near the title, considering everyone else has a game in hand, but that should see us safe from relegation, which was the main concern.

[saintwarwick]

What a great result - and we go top (unbelievably!).

And that after being bottom two months ago.

[NI76]

Brilliant stuff, unbelievable that we are now top of the Championship. A few days of rain next week and we'll have a chance of winning it going into the last game.

I would have thought that Giles White was a cert to be given a chance at the coaching job given our record since he's taken over.

Now we just need to get Tahir signed up.

[stevegrant]

A case of it never rains but it pours for Surrey... they've been docked one point for their slow over rate! :lol: