Solid as a rock

Over the last few years I’ve heard Mark Ramprakash described as ‘The Rock of Kennington’. Which may sound a little bit pompous, but I guess when (in the case of 2007) you score a record 30% of your teams runs you begin to see that as descriptions go, it’s shockingly accurate!

So. How do you move the seemingly unmoveable? An age old question that many a county bowler has asked themselves over the years! And the answer?

Get his team mate to run him out!

That’s a little bit harsh on Usman Afzaal, but as I mused earlier in this blog it is unfortunately true that he has does tend to be involved in a lot of run-outs, be they of his making or otherwise. Some players just happen to have that knack, I guess: Trott, Bopara and Shah in particular seem to have cornered that niche market!

Tonight, in the T20 game against the Essex Eagles, Surrey had performed rather well up to that point. Okay...well-ish. The first thing they did correctly was win the toss, and the skipper stuck Essex in to bat, which looked on the face of it a very good choice. Key wickets fell at the right time with Pettini going for 3, Bopara for 12 and Ten Doschate for 10. Resistance was shown by Flower (24) and Styris (17), but by the end of the Essex innings it was 121 for 8. Hardly a massive total to chase down, you’d have thought.

No doubt Surrey really fancied their chances of doing so. RHB showed some aggression but went early doors for 5, whilst Davies was dropped twice before he eventually went for 15. All the time Ramps looked untroubled whilst all those around him perished. Symonds struck 7, and Younus went to the very first ball. Ramps and Afzaal looked like they would settle into a rhythm until a moment of madness saw the latter accidentally run his team mate out when on 24, with Ramps slipping and not able to make the necessary ground in time. Having viewed the incident later on the highlights it didn't look too bad on Afzaal's part, but the commentary suggested he'd "absolutely stuffed him", and I get the feeling Mr R wasn’t terribly impressed. I can only hope when Afzaal made his way back to the dugout, having committed cricket suicide whilst on 12, that he had cotton wool in his ears to block out a few choice words!

But, as I said the other day, that’s cricket!

Up until that point the running between the wickets had actually been very impressive. There was always a good chance of picking up the necessary runs whilst Schofield was there, with Spriegel playing the accumulator at the other end, but when Schoey went it was pretty much game over, with two sixes needed from the last two balls. It unfortunately proved just too much.

The highlight of the game sounds like it might have been that neat litle breakdance move Mr R pulled whilst on the ground! It was a better performance from Surrey, whose bowling was vastly improved, but they will be dreadfully disappointed not to have been able to chase down a relatively small total with all of their specialist batsmen getting out cheaply.

Three things are clear from this innings, however. Firstly, if Surrey want to do well in the T20 the opening two batsmen are going to have to fire in tandem! I said that I believed Davies and RHB could potentially be an exciting live-wire pair, and I still maintain this, but you have to be in it to win it. Davies had two lives before he was eventually bowled, and the skipper sometimes gives the appearance of being stuck in warp-drive! I'm not going to tell these young men how to ply their trade, or which shots to pull out the locker. That would be a bit like telling Renée Fleming how to sing a Mozart aria! But although there's no real chance to build an innings as there is in the county championship, perhaps they should watch the old man batting at three to see how it is done. Minus the slip, that is.

Secondly, perhaps try to find a way to discourage run-outs when there is absolutely no pressure on the team at that point. There was time enough in the game to - not exactly take it easy, because you can never do that in T20 - but to just lightly keep the foot on the excellerator without burning serious rubber.

And thirdly, Surrey had better make the most of Ramps whilst they still have him, because they are going to find life even more difficult when he eventually hangs up the bat!