Up a certain creek without a certain implement...

I’m not going to bother with a proper report because the Kent game wasn’t a proper game. I don’t think Surrey bothered turning up. Certainly they shouldn’t have bothered given the way they played.

I mean, that was just ghastly. Everything was looking rosy until the early hours of day two when Surrey systematically threw away a very splendid position of 50 for no wicket and then sank to the ignominy of 266 run loss on day three!

The bowlers did well on day one, and okay on day two and three. The batsmen were fairly comatose in both innings. Some were the victims of good bowling, others got out just being a little bit, well, silly. So in the end you can probably say it was 60% Surrey lunacy, 30% Kent superior play, 5% Rob Key factor and 5% barking umpire decisions.

I know Ramps has come unstuck for challenging the umpires but it's usually something I prefer to leave to those who are there, witnessing things first hand. It's probably not something that's really my place to do. But I'm going to make an exception today. What the heck were the umps doing??? Bringing the players off yesterday when there was not a lot wrong with the light or conditions, then today when the gloom was worse, making you bat on? Certainly not the reason for the Surrey debacle because their cause was pretty much doomed after the first innings, but as soon as Ramps was bowled for 10 in the second innings it just about killed the game. Making them stay out after he lost his wicket sounded extremely dubious to me.

Not a good game for the umpires. Certainly one of the most desperate and horrible games for Surrey I’ve listened to over the last few years. Not how Ramps would have wanted to mark his 150th game as a Surrey player. It was a good game if you’re a Kent supporter, but as I’m not and this is primarily about Surrey I can’t really say anything other than ‘well done Kent, and well played Key and Stevens’.

Back to the drawing board for Surrey. Poor Davies is in horrible form and can’t buy a run, but you can’t drop your wicket keeper so he has to go somewhere. If he goes down the order, where do you put him? There are no openers in the Surrey ranks now as Michael Brown recently retired from First Class cricket due to ongoing injury issues. That leaves young Harinath, tried and failed on his last outing, but surely deserving another shot. And then who do you drop? Can’t drop the skipper. I doubt you’d drop Ramps unless his knee was playing up. De Bruyn had an uncustomary dodgy game but he’s been fairly solid and reliable in the earlier half of the year. Maynard too. If Harinath comes in, someone has to go.

Let’s look at this game’s totals in both innings. It doesn’t tell the full story, and isn’t really an example of how these players have performed overall, but it will show you how the game has gone:

RHB 34 & 40 = 74
Davies 23 & 0 = 23
Ramps 0 & 10 = 10
De Brun 1 & 0 = 1
Maynard 16 & 28 = 44
Roy 0 & 3 = 3
Ansari 21 & 0 = 21
Batty 23 & 3 = 26
Arafat 3 & 0 = 3
Linley 1 & 0 = 1
Dernbach 0 & 15 = 15

When the top contribution in an innings is 40, you are well and truly up ***t creek.