Cricket

SURREY ALL WASHED OUT

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2 May 2008

Durham (eight points) drew with Surrey (seven points)

Surrey continued their broken up start to the season, limping to a badly rain affected draw against possible championship rivals Durham.

The game was Surrey’s second four day game of the year and their second game that had been entirely ruined by rain.

After Durham skipper Dale Benkenstein won the toss and decided to bat, Surrey got off to a dream start, securing the wicket of Durham’s Australian run machine Michael de Venuto in the first over thanks to confusion between him and Mark Stoneman and a nimble follow through from Pedro Collins.

That was it until 3.40pm though, when Collins bounced back to life following the rain break by snagging the wickets of Kyle Coetzer and Neil McKenzie, leaving Durham flailing on 13/3.

Sadly, Mark Butcher’s men were unable to capitalise and some loose bowling enabled Durham to dig their heels in and use one of the game’s most consistent passages of play to move the score onto 144/3 overnight, with Stoneman and Benkenstein both playing impressive innings.

The second day, with the start delayed until 12.15pm – again saw the players on and off for rain. The first session only saw five overs bowled before the players went off for an early lunch.

Surrey came out strongest in the afternoon, Collins once again putting the ball in the right place to get Stoneman caught in the slips by Jimmy Ormond for 59.

Ormond then got his reward with the ball, getting Benkenstein to nibble at an away swinger that carried through to Jonathan Batty behind the stumps.

The aggressive Phil Mustard was caught at point, cutting uppishly off Matthew Nicholson, who also claimed Graham Onions, top edging a pull to Batty.

Dulwich College teenager Chris Jordan then proceeded to mop up the tail, smashing the stumps of Mark Davies and Neil Killeen with totally unplayable yorkers to dismiss Durham for 224, an excellent result given what it could have been.

Both Scott Newman and Jonathan Batty were dismissed early on in the Surrey reply, leaving them vulnerable at 18/2 but experienced heads prevailed and Mark Butcher and Mark Ramprakash saw off the intermittently threatening Steve Harmison as they moved to a partnership of 99.

However, with Ramps and Butch thinking about pushing on the following morning Graham Onions struck, forcing Ramprakash to edge to Neil McKenzie at first slip. It became a double blow for Surrey when Butcher repeated Ramprakash’s error off the bowling of Neil Killeen and Surrey ended on 123/4.

The start of day three, whilst filled with promise, saw Surrey come unstuck in spectacular fashion, crashing to 183 all out. Usman Afzaal started the collapse when he played on to Graham Onions and only Alistair Brown offered any resistance as the lower order capitulated to Killeen.

Durham tried to push on to set a winning total but, with de Venuto and Stoneman back in the pavilion courtesy of Saqlain and Ormond, they were the more relived side when rain brought an end at around 2.45pm.

With a draw looking the most likely outcome, Durham played positively on the final day to get to 228/9 declared. The highlight of the innings from a Surrey point of view was Saqlain adding five more wickets to his tally, taking five in four overs to close up the Durham innings and post figures of 6/50 from sixteen overs.

Chasing 270 to win, once Newman (18), Batty (0) and the promoted Afzaal (16) were dismissed, Surrey gave up all hope of taking the win and Butcher (21 not out) and Ramprakash (25 not out) played them sensibly through to a predictable draw.

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