Body line returns to the Ashes and Surrey’s demise!
After being in winning positions on numerous occasions at Edgbaston, in post-match interviews Root said he was expecting a really good response and expecting a really good show! But unfortunately, the weather intervened in what was a great test match nevertheless!
England has had many great bowlers including currently injured Jimmy Anderson, but Jofra Archer brings seriously fast pace right up there with Holding & Marshall of the great West Indies team of Yesteryear! He bowled in the right areas and at the body, he definitely shook up Steve Smith with his searing pace bowling at 96 mph before he hit him the side of his helmet.
On my return from New Zealand in April last year, it was just a matter of day’s before I would be watching my beloved Surrey play Hampshire on the opening day of the Championship. At lunch, Surrey was toiling with Fidel Edwards doing the damage. I remember at the time, walking around the outfield, thinking to myself, this looks like being a long season! We eventually beat Hampshire thanks to the bowling of Sam Curran & Ricky Clarke and a wonderful 145 by Olli Pope we, of course, went on to win the championship by a landslide only to lose the last game of the season to Essex in which we would have finished unbeaten if we had avoided defeat. Fast forward a year and I ask what has happened to the Rey?? With only two wins all season in the championship two wins in the T20 and only one in the 50 over comp! After a conversation I had with Gareth Batty in Sri Lanka he said there would be more of an emphasis on the white ball game! So what has gone wrong at the Oval when the previous year when we were blowing teams away?
Well, there have been England call ups and numerous injuries. It’s an excuse but not a valid one with the size of our squad. So many players have been underperforming. I also heard that one player returned to Surrey pre-season so overweight that he has only played the odd game. He was also seen running around the Oval blowing, he’s 21, lives in Chiswick and to be honest I don’t know what the reason is behind his weight gain but I can assure you I haven’t seen him in any of my Offices around Chiswick!!
Yesterday I received a text from my insider at the ground, prior to the start, Hampshire we’re practising bowling & batting while Surrey was playing football! Surely the only way to get back into form is feeling the ball against the willow, and practising different techniques and eradicating weaknesses.
This season you could bowl Surrey out with orange with Chelsea greats Frank Lebeouf at one end Dennis Wise the other – excuse the football pun! But surely the coaches need to be earning their corn and bring cricket back into cricket not substituting it for football!
We will be at Headingley on Wednesday to see what will be another great test match, we might be 1-0 down but we go there with momentum and Archer has definitely changed the dynamics of the Ashes!
We look forward to seeing some of our friends from previous tours and some of the new clients who are yet to travel with us for dinner and a few beers too!
