Following on from the non-follow on...

Day Four, Surrey v Middlesex at the Oval - Match drawn

It must be difficult being a sportsperson of any description when you put in a whole lot of effort and it comes to naught.

I’m not just talking about Mr Ramprakash here, although his tally of 223 and 103 not out combined was herculean enough, but the whole team who played out of their skins. The draw did have an inevitable feel to it, although at the start of the day there was always the hope that they might skittle Middlesex out quickly, but the (not surprisingly) defensive bowling and then the solid batting from Surrey’s north London rivals set the tone for the day.

You’d have to say that Surrey played the better cricket over the four days, but Middlesex were wily and experienced enough to swim against the tide, with the resulting draw probably a reasonably fair result (albeit typed with teeth firmly gritted). England fans will be mighty impressed with the way Strauss weathered the storm in two consecutive innings even although he seems to have fallen twice in similar circumstances to the same bowler (Dernbach). Kudos to Newman, too, for the way he got his head down and brushed aside the criticism.

I expect that both the gloriously-quaffed Rory HB and ‘Sir’ would have ideally wanted to get out and tonk the ball about a bit to see where they could get, but in the end not that many runs were added to the overnight total. Enough to see Ramps to his 111th first class century, which in the process means that he managed to create a new batting record. These batting records tend to happen a lot where Mr R is concerned, and my poor ickle brain has fried now, like it did when I was first instructed in the laws of cricket by dad when I was five. Hang on...

*runs off to check Cricinfo*

Think I’ve got this right. He’s now the first person to score two hundreds in one first class county championship match, done seven times. Ponting and Zaheer Abbas have done it eight times over all. What price he equals that at some stage before he retires? And whilst we are talking near superhuman antics, Ramps now averages 125 or thereabouts against Middlesex. That must be extremely cathartic!

I’m aware that this is statistical overload, but I used to work in statistics a few years back, so I’m quite fond of figures for the sake of it. I’m not talking about counting how many spiders the average human swallows in a lifetime (apparently it’s five, although who is counting them???). That bat has been raised an awful lot of times up to the balcony of the Oval. Stacks of photographers have got almost identical photos to go on their web pages/newspapers over the years. And it’s a lot of chewing gum left stuck to the old bat handle every night as well. Now, there’s a stat for Johnny Barran to work out!

A brief match report:

The skipper managed 29 from 30 balls before being caught by Middlesex captain Strauss, with the declaration following immediately; leaving Ramps on 103 not out. The total would have been about spot on in a five day game, and did at least give Surrey the consolation of knowing they probably wouldn’t lose the match from that point. Hindsight’s a marvellous thing, but from a Surrey perspective I suppose making Middlesex follow on would have been the best thing to do, yet I find myself suffering yet another conflict of thought. Do you keep bowling tired players and risk injuries? Do you want Tremlett to fall to pieces after just two championship games? And then of course from a rather Rampant point of view we wouldn’t have had the rather magnificent stat as relayed earlier (not the chewing gum one). Difficult, isn’t it?

Scott Newman managed to make 43 in the second innings, and Strauss added 61 to his previous 92 which in the end took the legs away from the prospect of a Surrey victory, just about seeing Middlesex to safety. Malan was bowled by Afzaal for 30 – although I don’t know if he took off down the runway to seek out his buddy or not. Possibly Mr R would have been too sore after his batting exertions to run away this time. Owais Shah made 40 and remained not out at the time the captains shook hands.

So, what to make of it? Some good individual performances from Surrey (and Middlesex), and a pretty decent team effort as well overall, in a game that you feel was won in a moral sense by the Oval residents. Alas, batting and bowling points don’t really make prizes, and a draw hasn’t really done Surrey any good as they still remain pretty far adrift at the foot of division two. Still, a win on a performance like this is probably not too far away now.

Tomorrow Surrey are heading off on some kind of marathon fortnight tour of the country, which is little short of insanity, and gives further credence to the theory that the schedule was drawn up by a bunch of Meerkats, high on blue Smarties, randomly pressing buttons...