Surrey coach: We’ll lick our wounds then fight back

BY MARCUS HOOK

Richard Johnson, Surrey’s head coach for the Royal London One-Day Cup, summed up Tuesday’s five-wicket defeat at Cardiff as “a bad day at the office.”

Glamorgan, who won with 139 balls to spare, not only ended Surrey’s unbeaten record in the 50-over competition, but now sit top of Group 1.

The result saw the Oval outfit drop to fifth, outside the places that guarantee a quarter-final berth.

After winning the toss, Surrey were reduced to 39-5 inside 17 overs. The lower order rallied as best it could to muster 132 all out, but, as Johnson admitted afterwards, the South Londoners had left themselves a mountain to climb.

“I think you could say it was a bad day at the office,” said Johnson, who is standing in as head coach in the absence of Vikram Solanki, who is coaching the Oval Invincibles Hundred franchise.

“We won the toss, batted, and thought it was a good decision. But, to be fair, Glamorgan bowled very, very well up front.

“They squeezed us, put us under immense pressure, from the first ball, and we never quite recovered from there.

“We couldn’t break the shackles and build a partnership, and they kept picking up wickets all the way along.

“We were three [wickets] down in the Powerplay and four down in the 14th over and it was really tough.

“You’ve got to give credit to a couple of the guys, who put their hand up and did well in the middle period, but to defend 132 needed everything to go your way.

“We talked about how we could have got to around 180 to 200, but we never quite got that partnership going.”
Johnson added: “We’re not going to get too down about it. We’ve had two really good wins against two very good sides. This is a little blip along the way and we’ll come back fighting.

“We talked at the start of this campaign – every day we train, every day we play, how are we going to improve and how are we going to get better?

“This game was a big lesson, in terms of how you play on that type of wicket and we’ve got to be better next time.

“We’ll lick our wounds and come back and, hopefully, put in more good performances.”

LEICS v SURREY
(probable line-ups)

Surrey
Stoneman, Amla (capt), Ryan Patel, Smith (wk), Clarke, David, Reifer, N.Kimber, McKerr, Moriarty and Dunn.

Leicestershire
Swindells (wk), Rishi Patel, Harris, Hill (capt), Rhodes, Lilley, L.Kimber, Mike, Ahmed, Barnes and Klein.

FORM GUIDE
Leicestershire have made an indifferent start to the Royal London, allowing Yorkshire and Warwickshire to rack up totals in excess of 300. Surrey’s issue – as was so starkly illustrated at Cardiff – has been their reliance on Ryan Patel and Mark Stoneman to get the runs.

STAT
This week’s five-wicket defeat to Glamorgan was only the fourth since the end of 2006 where Surrey have been beaten in List A cricket with more than 100 balls to spare.

KEY PLAYERS
Ryan Patel (Surrey) – the Royal London has really given Patel, who is averaging 51.66 with a strike rate of 158.16 per 100 balls, licence with the bat.

Marcus Harris (Leics) – The 29-year-old Australian is the glue that holds the Foxes’ batting together, allowing stroke-makers like Rishi Patel – who is also averaging over fifty with the bat in the Royal London – to express themselves.

STAR MAN
Dan Moriarty – whose two wickets for 25 at least took some of the gloss of Glamorgan’s effortless victory at Cardiff.

BEST MOMENT
Jamie Smith’s reflex catch behind the stumps, to dismiss Steven Reingold off the bowling of Moriarty.

FIXTURES
7 August: Leicestershire v Surrey at Leicester (Royal London One-Day Cup)
10 August: Surrey v Warwickshire at the Kia Oval (Royal London One-Day Cup)
12 August: Derbyshire v Surrey at Derby (Royal London One-Day Cup)