Matches (13)

T20 World Cup (4)

Vitality Blast (6)

CE Cup (3)

Live • 3rd Match, Group B • T20 World Cup • T20I • Bridgetown

OMA

NAM

Namibia chose to field.

Schedule Table Videos Series

RESULT • 2nd Match, Group C • T20 World Cup • T20I • Providence

PNG

136/8

(19/20 ov, T:137) 137/5

West Indies won by 5 wickets (with 6 balls remaining)

Schedule Table Report Series

Surrey

Want it quick or want it right?

After the mess that was the 2013 season, 2014 was always going to be as much about Surrey re-learning the way to win cricket matches as it was about pushing for promotion

Josh Green

01-May-2014

I don't know whether Graham Ford is much of a classicist, but Aristotle's assertion that good habits formed at youth make all the difference will ring true with him and his players at the moment. Twenty one points after three games, no wins and seventh in the table might not seem like a terribly impressive return from Surrey thus far, but it's not as bad as it looks.

After the mess that was the 2013 season, 2014 was always going to be as much about Surrey re-learning the way to win cricket matches as it was about pushing for promotion. Laying some solid foundations for success in the four day game had to be Ford's priority and happily he seems to have taken that to heart.

Last season we began by fielding a side featuring just two players under the age of 25. That motley crew had an average age of over 30. In stark contrast, the side put out against Hampshire this week averaged just 24 years old, with a couple of teenagers chucked in for good measure and only one player, the captain, over 30. Aristotle would be proud.

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No surprise people are guffawing

The bigger they come the harder they fall. It has been a desperate Championship season for Surrey which leaves tough questions to answer

Josh Green

24-Sep-2013

Where did it all go wrong? Unless Surrey pull off an unlikely dead rubber win against Yorkshire this week we'll be relegated with even fewer points than we managed in 2008, the occasion of our last ignominious demotion. For a squad that then-coach Chris Adams described as his "best ever", that's pretty rubbish.

There will be much guffawing at Surrey's demise, and why not? We whipped out the chequebook on a number of occasions to sign first Graeme Smith and then Ricky Ponting and Hashim Amla. Not to mention Glenn Maxwell, Kevin O'Brien and Azhar Mahmood. As returns on investment go, relegation to Division Two after splashing all that cash is something of a disaster.

It's hard to put a finger on exactly what went wrong, but our batsmen have many more questions to answer than our bowlers (who shouldn't be without their critics either). Before the last game against Warwickshire we had a run of eight innings where we only passed 200 three times. That is appalling by any standards. So rarely this season have we been able to put teams under real scoreboard pressure, such has been the flakiness of our batting.

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Surrey somewhat undervalued

With a batting line-up that has misfired and overseas players who have failed to perform, Surrey are far from favourites for the Flt20 but are capable of springing a surprise

Josh Green

16-Aug-2013

A trip to Twenty20 Finals Day and Hashim Amla in a Surrey shirt: in the same week. This in the same season that we've seen Graeme Smith and Ricky Ponting turn out for the club. If as Surrey fans we've been starved of success a little this season, we can't complain about the recruitment policy.

Yes, it's another example of Surrey splashing the cash and yes, it'll be embarrassing if we are still relegated despite having such luminaries on our books this year. Will it be enough to stave off relegation? Well, we certainly shouldn't have much trouble posting scores. Amla has played eight games in the Championship for Essex and Nottinghamshire, averaging 87 and recording nine scores of 50 or more.

I still wonder where 20 wickets are going to come from though. With the participation of Stuart Meaker in doubt for the remainder of 2013 a lot depends on our spinners. Amla's inclusion in the top six may mean a more adventurous approach to the bowling. I would expect five bowlers to be the norm from now on in, but do we have the match winners?

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Green shoots for Surrey?

Qualification for FLt20 Finals Day is less important than avoiding Championship relegation - but hopefully one might inspire the other

Josh Green

08-Aug-2013

So, having previously had a team of youthful power-hitting athletes that looked tailor-made for Twenty20, the team that actually got Surrey to our first Finals Day since 2006 was one with five players over 35 and a distinct lack of big hitters in the middle order. Still, by hook or by crook, we made it.

Our quarter-final win over Somerset followed the same basic formula that has served us so well in this competition, save for a blip that threatened to halt the charge. We backed our bowlers to restrict the opposition and hoped our batsmen would drag us over the line. They did. Edgbaston here we come.

It is undeniable that things look an awful lot rosier now than they did six weeks ago. But it's unfair to say that is all down to Chris Adams' departure - he largely put together the side that saw us through so some credit has to go to him for that. On the flip side, we still languish in the bottom two of the Championship and are now in an illustrious club of just two winless counties in 2013. Adams has his share of responsibility to shoulder for that as well.

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Adams' removal a gamble worth taking

No other county coach has had the resources Adams had at his disposal but ultimately there has been very little evidence of progress

Josh Green

17-Jun-2013

The times they are a changing. Changing coaches mid-season is always a big gamble, but this one is a gamble worth taking.

It is of course all too easy to forget now the latter half of 2011 where we secured a last-ditch promotion to Division One and then days later lifted the CB40 title. You have to give Adams his due, the CB40 victory was in large part down to his approach. He persisted with a spin-heavy attack which often meant our tail began at No. 6 or 7, but it paid off handsomely.

Promotion was also a magnificent achievement but had Alec Stewart and Anil Kumble not come together to secure the inspired signing of Pragyan Ojha for the final four games of the season we would probably still be in Division Two now. Aside from those heady weeks in the September 2011, have Surrey really got a lot to show from the last five or so years?

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Surrey's Smith-shaped hole yawns wide

There is plenty of talent at Surrey but the discipline and resolve shown in Graeme Smith's few weeks at the club has quickly dissipated

Josh Green

20-May-2013

The tedious, not to mention erroneous, dubbing of Surrey as "the Manchester United of cricket" has never sat particularly well with me. But lately there's been one (albeit tenuous) parallel between these sporting institutions - both have lost a figurehead. Though one was rather more entrenched than the other - Sir Alex Ferguson was in post for 26 years, Graeme Smith barely 26 days - Surrey have nonetheless felt the loss of their new captain very keenly indeed.

Clearly we will miss Smith's runs. I know he didn't score many in the three Championship games he played but do you really think a player of his calibre would have continued to average 30? No, neither do I.

We do have a talented bunch of batsmen, the hundreds for Rory Burns, Steven Davies and Gary Wilson this season attest to that. But is there really "lots of competition for places" as the chief executive, Richard Gould, claimed recently? By my reckoning there are only seven batsmen at the club right now. We're one injury away from a bit of a pickle. With Gary Wilson absent on Ireland duty at the end of the month and Zafar Ansari and Dominic Sibley still in education, our batting reserves could be sorely tested before Ricky Ponting arrives in June.

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Early return for the prodigal son

Having left Surrey in difficult circumstances last season, Rory Hamilton-Brown hopes to start afresh at Sussex but his chance to leave his mark at The Oval has come quickly

Josh Green

24-Apr-2013

The parable of the prodigal son tells of a boy who squandered what he was given. It might not quite be the parallel of the Rory Hamilton-Brown story but he certainly gave up what could have been a glittering future at Surrey.

I doubt that either party will be satisfied with the way the Surrey-Hamilton-Brown relationship ended. The club had to wave goodbye to a young man in whom they had invested a tremendous amount of faith, time and of course cash. Hamilton-Brown had to up sticks and return to the club he had left just three years before.

Without being a fly on the wall inside the club it's hard to get a handle on how the respective parties feel about what went on. Outwardly at least the club seem to have come to terms with the split a little better. The parting of the ways seemed cordial and public statements regarding the situation at the time were sensitive. Though Chris Adams was moved to state that he had "noticed behavioural changes in Rory that suggested he was losing his way" in a Sunday Times article, his 2012 write-up in the club yearbook was full of praise for his former protégé (incidentally while not mentioning actual Surrey legend Mark Ramprakash at all). Perhaps he felt he had to heap the praise on - Adams was the driving force in the appointment of Hamilton-Brown as captain for the 2010 season.

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Jordan debut poses questions for Surrey

Six wickets on Chris Jordan's Sussex debut not only put the skids under Yorkshire it puts the spotlight on Surrey's decision to let him go

Josh Green

12-Apr-2013

For Surrey fans, the curious case of case of Chris Jordan raises some interesting questions this week owing to his impressive debut for Sussex. Let me get my caveat out of the way at the outset of this post: no conclusions can be drawn on the basis of one innings, for either a batsman or a bowler. Nonetheless, like I said, questions...

Jordan returned figures of 6-48 from 15 overs bowling first change for Sussex against Yorkshire at Headingley. By all accounts, the 24-year-old Barbadian bowled with no little skill and pace. In five seasons with Surrey he had failed to register a single five-wicket haul. He skips town to our South Coast rivals and lo and behold, he's bagged a six-fer in his first game. When he departed the club at the end of 2012, I came to the conclusion that a change of scenery might just do the trick for him. Based on today's efforts, it certainly has.