Surrey’s brave effort is foiled at the last
Published 28 April 2007
Although Hampshire eventually earned a well-deserved victory at the Brit Oval, Surrey pushed Shane Warne’s men all the way before being dismissed for 467 - the third-highest fourth-innings total in the club’s history - and losing by thirty-five runs with just thirty-three balls of a sensational day’s cricket remaining.
Facing a mammoth task when play began, Surrey had much the better of the morning session, losing just one wicket – James Ormond falling lbw to Shane Warne in the sixth over – as Jon Batty and Mark Butcher dug in defiantly. Although they had a few scares along the way, with Michael Brown failing to snap up some half chances at short leg and Nic Pothas missing a sharp stumping chance offered by Butcher on nine, the third-wicket pair gradually increased their range of strokes to take their side to 220-3 at lunch. Batty had completed a most admirable century from 227 balls seven overs before the break, handling Warne well enough to show that he wouldn’t be out of his depth in Test cricket, while Butcher went to an equally well-played fifty three overs later.
Jon Batty slog sweeps to the boundary during his superb innings of 121
The home team’s prospects of securing a draw remained very much alive as the Batty-Butcher alliance continued to prosper after the interval but once Batty’s magnificent 280-ball vigil was ended by Shaun Udal with the batsman’s score on 121 and the total on 242 the innings went into seemingly terminal decline. Having reached seventy-two from 127 balls, Butcher fell to a bat-pad catch off the Hampshire off-spinner to make the score 277-5, then Ali Brown went without addition to the total, taken at the wicket off a perfectly pitched Warne leg-break. When Rikki Clarke was then beaten in the flight by Udal and caught at backward point shortly afterwards it appeared that the Hampshire spinners could wrap up victory before tea. Azhar Mahmood and Ian Salisbury had other ideas, however, and having established themselves before the break they proceeded to attack the bowling with rare gusto upon the resumption, completing a brave century partnership in 24.3 overs and bringing the previously unthinkable prospect of a Surrey victory into view.
As the game moved into its final hour, the home side required seventy-seven runs to win, leaving all four results still possible, and the outcome was still far from certain as Surrey picked off another twenty-one runs from the first four of the mandatory final sixteen overs. By this stage Warne had been forced back on the defensive, and his team was struck a further blow when Udal suffered a sickening leg injury as he stumbled while attempting to field a ball off his own bowling. Play was held up for around ten minutes while the stricken spinner was stretchered off the field to a sympathetic ovation and, with Dimitri Mascarenhas having already been sidelined by injury, the visitors’ bowling attack was left severely depleted. Warne eventually chose James Tomlinson ahead of James Bruce as the replacement for Udal in the attack and it turned out to be the correct decision for his side. Although the left-arm seamer soon conceded the boundary that took Salisbury through to a quite brilliant third first-class century from 118 balls, Tomlinson made the breakthrough Hampshire craved just two balls later when he clung on to a superb reflex caught-and-bowled chance offered by Azhar.
Ian Salisbury plays a rare defensive stroke in the midst of his brilliant century
As the Pakistani all-rounder departed for an excellent sixty-nine, with Surrey still forty-three runs short of their target and the eighth-wicket pair having established a new county record partnership for Surrey against Hampshire, it appeared that Hampshire were again in pole position to record only their eighth-ever County Championship victory on Surrey soil. Now faced with the dilemma of whether to continue chasing victory or to block out for the draw, Salisbury boldly took the former option. Unfortunately for the Surrey leg-spinner, fortune wasn’t to favour the brave on this occasion as he was stumped by Pothas off Warne just eight balls after the departure of Mahmood , leaving the last-wicker pair of Nayan Doshi and Mohammad Akram to attempt to play out the final eight overs. With fielders now clustered all around the bat, a joyful Tomlinson ensured that Mark Butcher’s men wouldn’t pull off a great escape by shattering Akram’s stumps with 5.3 overs remaining, leaving Hampshire triumphant by thirty-five runs at the end of a quite remarkable and pulsating day’s cricket.
To view the scorecard from today's play please click here
Surrey's next match at the Brit Oval is in the Friends Provident Trophy against Gloucestershire Gladiators on Sunday 29th April. Tickets cost £12 for adults and £6 for under 16s. Gates will be open from 8.45am and play will commence at 10.45am.
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