David Ironmonger reports from the Oval…
Sometimes in cricket it honestly doesn’t matter what you do – as was the case with Surrey on Friday night as they were taken to the cleaners by Glamorgan. A fine innings by both Jacques Rudolph and Colin Ingram racked up a total of 240 runs and put Surrey under serious pressure to improve. On Saturday they face Essex, a team with a notoriously powerful, dangerous and deep batting line-up.
Now whether this performance by the bowling attack can be blamed on the flat-looking pitch is up for debate, but far too many balls were wide, pitched up or as in some cases predictable, especially the attempted slow balls. The bowling of Matt Dunn especially was a problem going for 0-54 off four overs. Even the experienced Gareth Batty was torched for 46 runs and no wicket. The lone star at the beginning was Wahab Riaz, but his bowling faded near the end.
But even though the bowlers were picked apart by the batsmen, we shouldn’t discredit the innings of Ingram, who capitalised on being dropped on 9 to go on to hit 91 off 47 balls. It was an innings with a stunning variety of shots, sweeps, reverse sweeps, cover drives, leg glances and hooks. Although it was a shame that he wasn’t able to complete his 100 after being bowled middle stump by Riaz, watching a player smash seven sixes and powerfully placing six fours was a truly glorious experience.
Back to Surrey, though, and although the batting attack looks promising with the likes of Jason Roy, Steven Davies and overseas Sri Lankan star Kumar Sangakkara, the bowling has to stiffen up otherwise Jesse Ryder, Graham Napier, Ravi Bopara and Ryan Ten Doeschate will put this bowling attack to the sword in an even more dramatic fashion then Glamorgan.