Abbott is still out injured, so it's an unchanged 15 man squad for tomorrow. I also suspect it'll be an unchanged XI, even though I've always stated I would like to see a couple of changes. We've clearly hung our hat on Fidel, Taylor and Weatherley, rather than Wood and Alsop, so I suspect they'll be reluctant to change that after just one game. Good time to be playing Surrey. Morkel is still injured, Stoneman is with the test team, and Tom Curran and Roy are at the IPL. Although of course, without Abbott, Northeast and Dawson, they'll be saying the same about us.
Strange decision from Surrey to bat. Firstly, chasing at the RB these days is usually the way to go. Secondly, there's rain later: everyone knows DL favours the batting side.
Mason pulling us right back into it. It's also allowed Taylor to bowl economically, and fly through his overs, as they're not looking to attach him as much now. Like us, Surrey have a lot of bits and pieces cricketers in their middle and lower order. So if you bowl and field well, you can knock a few over cheaply.
Forecast suggests we could be off for over three hours now, if really unlucky. Subject to the outfield drying in time though, I don't think there's much risk of us not getting in at least the required 10 overs though. Looks like a dry couple of hours up to 10pm. That 6th wicket at the end will help to reduce the DL target, if it comes to that.
I think, if we wanted, we could bowl Topley throughout from this end, and give one over to each of Berg, Fidel and Crane from the other. Sadly the loss of six overs means that Crane can't now bowl both of those two overs that Vince had kept up his sleeve.
Our death bowling is awful. Has been for a while. I've never understood why we don't bowl Topley more earlier in the innings; and why we bowl Fidel at all.
I wouldn't cry if the rain washed out the rest of this. I don't back us to chase that down. Dreadful period from us after the rain break, should have been keeping them down to 230. When will we ever learn that Fidel is too expensive for white-ball cricket.
So that's about an extra 0.5 runs per over required, but 10 fewer overs that we need to bat for. I'd suggest this revised equation favours us more than them. Nonetheless, 6.5 an over isn't easy. Especially not when the two new balls will almost certainly swing, given the conditions. Curran and Clarke killed us in swinging conditions just a few weeks ago.
I highlighted Curran and Clarke above as dangers to us. I didn't say anything about Dernbach! Quite happy with him bowling!
