Surrey players Matthew Spriegel and Arun Harinath are currently touring South Africa with the MCC British Universities and here on www.surreycricket.com you can follow how they are getting on with, Spriegel’s blog.

He writes…

While the rest of the Surrey squad were heading to the Brit Oval for the first day of pre-season and the dreaded bleep test, myself and Arun Harinath were on our way to Cape Town with MCC Universities, or so we thought. Our flight was delayed by 24 hours which meant we were put up in a hotel overnight and left the following morning. There was a wide range of films available to watch during the flight which made it easy to avoid doing the work I need to do before I head back to Loughborough for the summer term.

The tour party is made up of 15 players from around the six University Cricket Centres of Excellence across the country – Loughborough, Durham, Oxford, Cardiff, Cambridge and Leeds/Bradford. It includes Daniel Pratt and Peter Young, both of whom represented Surrey throughout the age groups and also Ruel Braithwaite who has played a number of second eleven games for Surrey.

We arrived late on Friday night and all the guys headed straight to bed after what had been a very long day. The next morning was spent acclimatising in the hotel and the surrounding area before training in the afternoon. As it was a Saturday all the grounds were being used so there were no net facilities available which meant we did a fielding session and the bowlers had gentle walk through. Not ideal preparation for our first game the next day!

No matter how much training you do throughout the winter it still takes a while to adjust to playing outdoors, mainly due to the different surfaces. The wickets out here this time of year are tired and slow as it is the end of their season, making it even harder to adjust. We played Western Cape Academy and decided to bat first, our rustiness showed as we collapsed from 45-1 to 65-7. I felt in good touch while I was in but I was annoyingly bowled for 19 and Arun was unlucky to be caught at slip for two. We put up a stern fight and ended up having them 6 wickets down as they passed out score of 95. After the game we went straight into the nets to try to give the batters some much needed time to hit some balls and it paid off the next day.

We played the same opposition on the same wicket and fielded first doing well to restrict them to 128, thanks mainly to Paul McMahon ripping through their middle order taking 6-16. I had my first bowl of the tour and was pleased with my return of one for 24 off my ten overs. On a wearing wicket we got off to a bad start and were 10 for two but myself and Arun put on 55 for the third wicket until he was caught at point for 19 – just as he started to grow in confidence. Peter Young came in and batted sensibly for 17 not out as we won be seven wickets. I ended on 64 not out and was very pleased as I was able to implement a lot of the things I had learnt in India and was especially happy to see it through and be there at the end.

So with spirit lifted after a good win we had dinner at the Mount Nelson Hotel on the MCC which was absolutely fantastic and thoroughly enjoyable. The next day was a day off and we went to the beach and enjoyed a really relaxing day knowing that we have a hard tour ahead.

The Pemberton Greenish Surrey Academy arrived a few days ago so after training the next day we went to watch their first game and catch up with the coaches and players, one of whom is Arun’s brother, Muhanthan.

I will be back in touch in the next couple of days to let you know how we are getting on.

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