GT wrote:
Hope so, it's one of the remaining County HQs to tick off! Swansea and Cheltenham would make a nice change as well!
I completed my set of county grounds at Chelmsford last year. It's the third closest to my home after The Oval and Lord's, but Surrey haven't been in the same division as Essex very often in recent years and our two previous matches in Essex were at Colchester. I like both the Essex grounds, and both are in the town centre and convenient to get to if your staying in the area for a few days.
Cheltenham is a lovely ground, while Swansea has seen better days but has plenty of character. Surely Lancs will visit Glamorgan at Colwyn Bay though?
I'm now looking forward to a stress-free day at Aigburth next week, which will leave me with only Colwyn Bay and Scarborough left to do of the current regular outgrounds. I actually day tripped Scarborough two years ago for the first day of Yorks v Hants while I was staying in Leeds but it was washed out without a ball being bowled. The previous day I'd seen Castleford v Harlequins in blazing sunshine. Hopefully Surrey will play at Scarborough if Yorkshire come up.
Surrey delivered their best performance of the season last week to beat Notts, having prepared a slow turning pitch to suit the vastly experienced duo of Batty & Kartik, while Pietersen also relished the rare opportunity to bowl a ten over spell in helpful conditions with an attacking field. (I think it's ridiculous that England never made more use of his bowling.) Notts just had too many first choice players missing for one reason or another and they weren't helped by losing the toss which meant they batted last, by which time they were never going to chase down 300+ in the prevailing conditions.
