Surrey v Derbyshire day 2

If John Morris was a script writer at work on something to encapsulate Derbyshire's first two days of the season, he would have found it hard to better their work on the first two days of this match.

Indeed, if Surrey are, as many good judges suggest, one of the two favourites to go up this year, I would suggest that a few people might be looking to revise the odds on Derbyshire at this stage, after two excellent days at the Oval.

Chris Rogers duly completed his fourth double century for the county - an outstanding effort, which saw him the first Derbyshire batsman to do so against Surrey since 1976, when Eddie Barlow put them to the sword in a wonderful innings at Ilkeston. Here's a trivia question - what name links both of those knocks? Answer at the bottom of the article...

After he was dismissed there was a cameo from Graham Wagg but what really hurt Surrey was the last wicket stand between Lee Goddard - a heck of a good number nine - and Mark Footitt, who showed he can bat too with a new career best. There's a fair psychological difference between chasing 250 and 300 to avoid the follow on, while the batsmen prepare to go in and bat, only to find themselves hanging around in the field.

The overnight press suggested we'd be happy with 400 and exceeding that by some distance was an excellent effort on an April track. Greg Smith followed his batting efforts with three wickets, while the late dismissal of Stephen Davies, who became Robin Peterson's first victim for Derbyshire, could be very important in the context of the match as he looked very dangerous.

As for tomorrow, we need to split Ramprakash and Batty early, then are through to what looks a fairly lengthy tail. I'm not sure that we would enforce the follow on unless we rolled them over for less than 250, and the skipper may fancy setting them 400-plus on the last day with a bit of turn for Peterson to exploit.

One thing struck me today - are we perhaps the only county with two bowlers who can handle different styles? With Greg Smith and Graham Wagg we have two excellent, multi-faceted cricketers who offer so much to the side and will play crucial roles if we are to have a good year.

Another good forecast for tomorrow, so lets just hope for some more cloud cover and early wickets. As for that trivia question - the link is Borrington. Dad Tony batted at the other end to Eddie Barlow in 1976, while Paul obviously did the same with Chris Rogers in this one. We won that game, so let's hope that the portents are good.

Finally tonight, 77% of those responding thought we are set for better fortunes at least in the T20 this year. I'm one of them, though I'll maybe reserve judgement until I see how we bowl in these games. I'm confident we'll score decent totals, but we'll still need to bowl much better than last year.

Until tomorrow, adios my friends.