A view of the cockrell's bottom

It was always going to be a tough order to overcome a confident Somerset side, and so it proved to be in today’s CB40 game. The scorecard doesn’t tell the full story, but it does give an indication of the way the game twisted and turned.

Trescothick was potentially a huge threat but one that was surprisingly annulled with only 8 runs to his name, but in his place there came equally explosive and worthy batsmen: Kieswetter (who started like a train but finished like a speeding snail) hit 79 and even more impressively Buttler down the order made a match-winning 87. Du Bruyn has often been a nemesis for Surrey, and he chipped in with 54, contributing to a rather imposing 290 for six!

I looked at the score set by Somerset and mentioned to some of the listening Rampants that I was slightly concerned they were perhaps a batsman light and that:

“With it reduced to 36 overs they really could have done with the extra batting power, because if RHB or Davies go cheaply or Roy has a bad day, there's only Ramps left!”

Who’s a clever girl, then?

Unfortunately, the skipper made 0 today. Davies made 11 and Roy a 0, just to make the score board slightly symmetrical. And Ramps made 73.

That’s not to say that Kennington’s batting maestro was the only one who put in a good performance as Spriegel and Walters both got within touching distance of a half century, but again there was little backing up done by the lower order batters except from a cheeky and explosive 31 from Dernbach at the tail. It seems to me that if the top two fail to lay a reasonable foundation for the middle order Surrey really struggle. There’s an awful lot of pressure on Mark Ramprakash’s shoulders to bat the entire innings, and fair play to him: he gives it a pretty good go most days! But it’s also not fair on him.

I’m not going to say the selection was wrong: I don’t believe it’s my place to do so. However, I think I would have preferred Wilson in the team just to shore up the batting on what is a ground that usually sees runs galore.

Of course, Somerset had the game won pretty much from the moment that sizeable tally was posted. Poor Tremlett had a bit of a shocker with the ball today, leaking over 70 runs. He’s been so stupendous up until now: I really hope this doesn’t knock his new found confidence because he’s been a cracking acquisition for Surrey this season.

Some words of praise here for poor, frozen Mark Church; shivering away in the hut whilst he provided his usual splendid commentary. It was a gallant attempt to give us a flavour of a frustratingly stop-start game affected by the rain, punctuated by the occasional sniffle and creaking of vocal chords. If icicles could speak they would sound like Churchy did this evening. Somebody get him a well deserved shot of brandy! That was a radio performance beyond the call of duty: I was feeling cold just listening!