The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Day Three, Glamorgan v Surrey, Swalec

The Good:

Mark Ramprakash passed the 34,000 run mark. When I say that, I don’t mean he got 34,000 runs today. He’s good, but unless he changes his name to Clark Kent it’s probably beyond even his superhuman powers. All the same 34,000 runs is something to be proud of, because when you think of it that’s an awful lot of shoe leather. The wonderfully named Cyril Washbrook is immediately ahead of him on the list with 34101 runs, so we’re keeping our collective Rampant fingers crossed he soon overtakes him.

Steven Davies making 83 was also pretty darned good, as was a comfy looking 73 from Ramps.

The still Good:

Chris Tremlett thundering in to claim two very early wickets this morning and finish off the Glamorgan innings with them adding something in the region of only 8 more runs. I acknowledge that if you are reading this as a Glamorgan fan you are probably less likely to see this as ‘good’. But then again, you are also probably thinking ‘I don’t care, we have a lead of 76 going in to tomorrow,’ so it evens things up a touch.

The Fairly Good:

The unexpected declaration by Surrey’s very own Captain Marvel, Rory Hamilton Brown. It was a good idea, probably based on the fact that Glamorgan might have expected an overnight declaration, that there was little point in keeping batting with the last wicket partnership on the field and with no more batting points realistically attainable, and with a chance of dismissing Cosgrove for very little. Unfortunately it gets downgraded to ‘fairly’ good because Cosgrove was still there at the end of play, as was Rees.

The Not Exactly Bad, but Not Good:

Usman Afzaal falling one short of a rather good fifty. My fault, Usman. Just as Churchy said you were one short I heard a little voice in my head say that you weren’t going to get it, and lo and behold two seconds later you were gone for 49! Must try to restrain spooky witchy stuff in future.

Yonus Khan getting his first bat for Surrey was definitely good. Falling fifth ball without scoring: unfortunate.

The Bad:

I was studying a particularly unfortunate branch of my family tree today. Five children wiped out by Scarlatina. Three of those children, including a set of twins, all died within a space of two weeks. It put me in mind of the tail end of the Surrey batting line-up as within 10 overs Afzaal, Batty, Meaker and Dernbach all perished for not very many at all.

Again, from a Surrey point of view, Harris ripping through the top order after tea was extremely unhelpful. He got rid of Davies, then Ramps with a beautiful ball (which doesn’t endear him to us because we don’t take kindly to people dismissing the King of Kennington), and then both Younus and the young pretender RHB for quackers! Obviously, if you are Harris or one of the Glamorgan team you probably are feeling a little bit better about it than the Rampants do.

The Ugly:

My mood when the aforementioned Harris got rid of Ramps just when I was settling in to listen to the commentary! You couldn’t have even waited 5 minutes, could you James???