The wicketkeeper Geraint Jones contrib-uted 82 while the New Zealand spinner Daniel Vettori captured 4 for 74 on
The wicketkeeper Geraint Jones contrib-uted 82, while the New Zealand spinner Daniel Vettori captured 4 for 74 on his Championship debut.The Nottinghamshire captain, Jason Gallian, struck 51 as the visitors began their reply positively. But the Pakistan pace bowler Mohammad Sami grabbed three wickets to reduce them to 137 for 5.At Southgate, Middlesex’s captain Andrew Strauss made 147 as his side reached 382 for 5 against Leicestershire, who are bottom of Division One. The Irishman Ed Joyce remained unbeaten on 81.In the Second Division, Gary Pratt compiled 150 out of Durham’s total of 325 for 9 against North-amptonshire at the Riverside Medium-pacer Mike Cawdron picked up figures of 6 for 87.. Slapdash probably summed up Surrey’s day most accurately. They certainly injected a bit of dash to proceedings, as 56 boundaries and two sixes would attest. But every time the First Division leaders threatened to gallop away from their hosts, Warwickshire, would slap them down. It was the same late in the day when a steady start to their reply certainly left the home side with the edge.
The next spell came late in the middle session and was sparked by Warwickshire’s other left-arm seamer Graham Wagg, also making his first Championship appearance of the season, who had Azhar Mahmood caught down the leg side off the last ball of his 15th over.Carter then marked the start of his fourth spell by having Alec Stewart and Ian Salisbury caught behind and Saqlain Mushtaq taken by Jonathan Trott, at short leg in the space of four balls to claim a Championship best 5 for 75 and only the fourth such haul of his career, two of them for Boland.That left one Surrey wicket and they had just two batting points to their name. It should all have ended around then, but this was no ordinary day And Surrey’s is no ordinary tail end. Martin Bicknell and in particular Jimmy Ormond, dug out a defiant 67 more runs, salvaging pride and two further points before the bigger-hitting Ormond deflected a Dougie Brown delivery on to his stumps.Before all that there had been the sight of Surrey captains past and present, Stewart and Adam Hollioake, breezing along, as they hammered a morale denting 150 runs in 31 overs.It was not altogether orthodox, or in Stewart’s case, batting that was in character, but it was certainly effective. It blew away the cobwebs, indeed at times it blew away the field, to judge by the three missed chances that Warwickshire had at the pair, and during the day there were other opportunities to bring premature ends to various Surrey batsmen which went begging, not to mention misfields, of which both sides were guilty.In the end Hollioake completed a fourth half-century in successive innings against Warwickshire, while Stewart made it five fifties in seven Championship innings this season..
The return to form of Michael Vaughan and another ferocious assault on South Africa’s leading bowlers by Andrew Flintoff somewhat overshadowed an exquisite little innings of 37 by Rikki Clarke during England’s NatWest Series victory on Tuesday evening. Clarke’s innings at Edgbaston may only have lasted 34 balls but during his time at the crease the Surrey all-rounder made quite an impression. England were on 130 for 4 and still required a further 69 runs to win. That the Lancashire all-rounder had whipped the 20,000-plus crowd into a frenzy with some thunderous stroke-play did not help.Coming in to bat after such a performance is difficult for an established player, let alone a 21-year-old in only his sixth international match. Clarke, however, did not appear fazed by the pressure of the situation.
