v Surrey @ Taunton TSL2 2 May 2005

So who will be in the side for the second of the back to back TSL fixtures? Mark Garaway and the selection committee stood by their policy and replaced both Nixon McLean and Andrew Caddick with younger men. Both Gareth Andrew and Simon Francis performed well and there is now a genuine fight for the one day bowling honours. Mike Burns has not had such a great start to this season and looks like the possible candidate to stand down to let in Marcus Trescothick (not in the greatest form of his life either) to possibly open with Sanath Jayasuriya on Monday. Who else could be a candidate?

Well, let's look at who isn't. John Francis isn't, although he wasn't particularly fluent on Sunday and will have to score a lot quicker in a one day match with a more challenging target, he is the man in form. He has to stay at number 3. Keith Parsons is too valuable in our one day setup and has now made his home at number 4. James Hildreth could be a candidate at 5 but surely we have to stay with our youth policy with such a predigious talent in the side and Ian Blackwell is needed for his bowling if his batting has been a little varied at the start of this season. Preferring Burns to Hildreth or Francis would be a backward step. Mike will just have to fight to get his place back and he has the as yet largely untried Matt Wood to take on there!

Aaron Laraman is certain to play after his Foxes performance and Rob Turner will keep the gloves. Gareth Andrew's 3 for 48 was agressive enough to keep him in the frame and Simon Francis with 2 for 42 also is now a prime candidate for a one day berth. Andrew Caddick may return, in rotation with Richard Johnson, although his 1 for 43 was far from a poor performance. It is doubtful that Nixon will grace the pitch because he was not primarily signed as a one day player and has no need to put his boots on at the moment. Therefore I would plump for Andrew, Francis and Caddick. The last one primarily because he must have been put in a position oon Sunday when he wants to bowl to re-assert his position. Johnson may play, in which case he will probably be preferred to either Caddick or Andrew.

Surrey will not be Leicestershire. They are re-building but don't ever underestimate the men with the brown heads (sorry hats). It should be a good game if our win has put a new spring in our step. Should have done!

I had glorious sunshine 15 miles outside of Taunton all morning but it is windy and overcast with some ominous stuff off to the motorway. Somerset have named a squad of 13. No place for Matt Wood once again, faith remains with Mike Burns. Gareth Andrew and Simon Francis remain. Johnson is rested so Caddick is in.  No Laraman,  no idea why that is no announcement from anywhere.

No Thorpe or Clark or Akram so that's not bad. They've won the toss and have put us in.

Out comes Burns and Jayasuria but Mike just isn't at the races and the faith is not enough as he is LBW in the middle of the third over.  Then down comes the rain for half an hour...we lose one over.  So, Marcus T and the lilttle Sri Lankan finally get to play together and don't we have some fun?  Trescothick is definitely not here to hang about and start to dispatch the ball to various advertising boards off some indifferent bowling.  After a little while, SJ gets into the swing and we have run mania for a little while.  By the 14th over, we have 100 up and first Banger goes to 50 off 43 and then seems to take the foot off the gas and goes 2 runs later at 104, after adding 97 for the second wicket.  A bit disappointing really, he looked in 'ton form' but seemed to lose his concentration.  However, Sanath isn't finished yet and goes to his half century off 30 plus balls...he started slowly but accelerated once he'd decided to give it a belt.  Great to see.

SJ is joined by John Francis who is happy to play the defensive role for a while and let the overseas guy go for the runs.  Unfortunately, that only lasts until 138 when SJ goes for one too many and is caught for an excellent 61 with one majestic six and 9 fours.  Seems he's arrived! 

He is replaced by Keith Parsons and immediately starts to nurdle.  Which is fine because Surrey's fielding is absolutely abysmal.  We have had at least 6 runs from overthrows and no-one seems to be able to pick a ball up and get it in.  There's an awful lot of stooping but rarely do they come up with the ball!  The two men accumulate but Benning surprises John at 180 and he loses his off stump. 

We now need someone to move the innings on as KP is happy to get a run a ball and let the stokeplayers put the finish on it with the bigger scoring.  That is perfect for Ian Blackwell, the next man in.  He doesn't seem to be in such an aggressive mood today though and although there is a couple of bigs shots (one immense six), he adds 52 with Parsons in his half and hour before he holes out to Sampson for 29.  What he does do is help move us over 200 and he leaves at 232 in the 36th and we have to expect the high 200's at least.

Unfortunately we miscalculate because James Hildreth is the "Man with no Fear" and just what Keith needs to get him flowing.  Hilda doesn't seem to have a concept of getting settled and immediately starts to belt the ball all over the place.  Parsons reaches 50 off 54 balls (a great indicator of what he does in these games. He takes the ones and keeps the score ticking over) then he decides to go up a notch with Hildreth pushing to run for everything.

One excellent incident illustrates the cricketing brain of Ali Brown.  Hildreth  skies one to the Stragglers and Ali runs around to catch the ball.  However, it is very close to the fence and although he pouches the ball easily, he realises that he's going to smack into the boards.  As quick as a flash he assesses the situation and throws the ball away, makes sure he doesn't have it when he hits the boundary and then turns, picks it up and saves 4.  Brilliant.

But it doesn't really matter because the two Somerset batsmen are in full flow and an over later, the same player misfields a four in front of the River stand and the next ball is dispatched into the Botham stand by Hildreth to record the 50 partnership. 

Mr Sampson now suffers greatlyin the 42nd as Keith assesses that the 300 is on with 271 at the start of the 41st (we lost an over because of rain so there are only 44 to bowl).  James is letting loose so KP puts the first ball into the seats outside the shop for six, he then puts the second even further into the stand outside the scoreboard to bring up the third hundred.  The last ball then dissappears into the green sheds as the Surrey man records 28 off the over and returns to his deep fielding position with waterey eyes.  It doesn't stop even though KP is bowled by Ormond for 85 off 75 balls (the last 35 off 21 of them....mostly off the 42nd!).  Superb performance.

Rob Turner is determined to score off everything he faces, he faces 3 and gets 6 and Hildreth has had that opinion all day so we continue to move the score along. He finishes with a quickfire 33 off 17 and we raise the final total to the highest League score by Somerset at Taunton, passing the Notts of the late 90's to record 325 for 6.  Great score, good balance annd well played to almost everyone.  Surrey look weak in the seam department.  they have too many spinners and were very very poor in the field. 

Very big ask for Surrey and it doesn't start well for them.  Francis and Caddick start for us at the River and Old Pavilion ends respectively.  It's 19 off the first 5 and Simon looks for more likely to get a wicket than Caddy.  And so it transpires as seems determined to fall to the Francis brothers.  First he flips one just over John's head off the bowling of Simon.  Then he drops one just at his fingertips the very next ball.  Finally he gets the length right and plops one straight into his gut.  Takes all sorts to lose a one dayer 42 for 1!!

There is some brilliant fielding by the boys in the first part of this game.  Gareth Andrew is particularly sharp and almost pulls off an excellent run out throwing down the stumps at the bowlers end from his mid on position.  Newham makes the Surrey task even harder when he also doesn't stay around, caught by Burns with the score on 41 in the 9th.

Batty tries to get the innings back into some semblance of order as he is joined by Hodd and they put on 32 before Hodd becomes the third victim, bowled around his legs by Ian Blackwell.  Out comes Ali Brown, he is not keen to push a few and starts going for it in a big way.  We let him too as Marcus drops him on a masive score of ONE!  A glitch in an otherwise better day.

Brown is awesome and gives Andrew C in particular some stick, taking 18 off one over.  But the other boys stay on task and take out the other batsmen.  Brown can only win it if someone stays at the other end and although he puts on over 60 with Batty, Andrew bowls him for 41 at 139 and Benning only lasts another 20 before he also falls to Andrew when he puts one into the huge hands of Caddick. Brown "canna do it alone" and tries once too often to push his luck.  Enter a brilliant running catch from Simon Francis off the bowling of Blackwell and exit Mr Brown.

After that it is just grinding it out.  Surrey have effectively lost the will to fight but don't want to go out losing by 100 runs so Ramprakash and his boys put down the anchor and try to survive to the end.  Ramps lasts 17 minutes and nearly gets to 200.  Sampson takes them over the 200 but only lasts 7 and Ormond is the last wicket to fall before Doshi and Saker hold it together to creep over the 100 behind total...by 1.

We hammer Surrey and take 4 points.  To be fair there was no Thorpe, Clarke or Akram but they would have been pushed to get their side home after early losses.  We kept to our task and there were some really good performances. Batting from the birthday boy...once again.  Bowling from Simon Francis in particular but also from Ian Blackwell and Gareth Andrew who went for a few but took vital wickets and fielded like a man possessed.  The new boys have come in during these games and certainly put themselves on the squad sheet for the C&G.  James Hildreth returned to one day form...no second season blues for him it seems.

Andy Caddick came in for some stick, and will probably come in for some more tonight on the messageboards.  Will he play on Wednesday?  Mike Burns seems to be in a deep batting hole at the moment and may have to consider his position for a while from the bench...how long can we hope he comes out of it?  Let's hope that Aaron Laraman is fit agian to give the selectors even more headaches.

Apologies from my end for the lateness of this report.  Things worked against me as well.  Technical hitches at the ground made posting from there impossible, I missed the end of our innings because I had to leave early and last night when I had the chance to put the scoreboard onto the messageboard, Ananova decided not to carry a link for our game...no-oone else, just our game!!

But there ya go.  Does this mean we have at least done as well as last year?  These two performances have been a hell of a lot better than anything I saw in 2004 with the white ball.  Long may it continue.  On to the C&G and then...let's get the CC season sorted against the in form Durham.  Good travelling to those going.  Let us know what's happening from the spectators point of view for the CEEFAX Brigade!!

View a Printer Friendly version of this Story.

Bookmark or share this story with:

• Digg
• Delicious
• Facebook
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon