Thursday 21 April 2011

A good day all round

What's not to like? A big hundred for Zander de Bruyn, a slightly smaller hundred for Tom Maynard, 99 and run out for Chris Schofield and ending the day with three wickets for Stuart Meaker. Glamorgan are way behind the 8-ball, 480 runs to be precise, with only six first innings wickets left.

De Bruyn started the day almost more fluently than he ended the last, making the early running while Tom Maynard settled in, determined to complete his maiden first class ton against the team who dumped his father as coach last year. Surrey notched over 100 runs in the morning session as they looked to build a massive first innings total.

Maynard duly completed his first hundred and he and Schofield looked to accelerate until the former was stumped off the persistent Dean Cosker. That bought Gareth Batty to the crease with Schofield and they proceeded to put on another 130 after Glamorgan skipper Petersen dropped Batty at slip while he was on 10. Although I thought Hamilton-Brown might have wanted 600+ Chris Schofield's apparent urgency in attempting to reach his hundred seemed to suggest the message had gone out that the declaration would come at tea - he was cruelly run out (it seemed to be of his own doing mind you) for 99, Surrey declared immediately after.

That left Glamorgan with 30 or so overs to face and although Dernbach and Arafat started well enough, there was no penetration until that man Meaker came on. He trapped Petersen LBW with the score on 35 and then Batty sparked a mini collapse of 3 wickets for 15 runs, Meaker picking up the other two - all four wickets falling leg before. The failure of Arafat to find his mojo again - his four overs went for 36 - is troubling, I certainly would've expected more from him even on such a lifeless pitch.

Dernbach only bowled four overs and was off the field for a large chunk of time (in fact @Colsacricket tells me he did not re-emerge at all), being a bowler down on such an un-bowler friendly pitch is less than ideal, but as Meaker showed, where there's a will, there's a way. Again I found it odd that while Batty had success in his five overs RHB left Schofield until the very end, after even de Bruyn had bowled three. I suspect the two spinners will have much work to do if we are to extract 16 more Glamorgan wickets.

Certainly there is massive pressure on Glamorgan now needing more than 300 more just to avoid the follow on, ironically it is a former Surrey man in Stewart Walters who will come to the crease tomorrow morning. He will be desperate to emulate Tom Maynard and make his old club regret letting him go. They do bat deep, but Surrey are in an excellent position and will feel comfortable in attacking from the get-go.

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