Friday 8 June 2012

Wells drives Surrey into the ground



Sussex have had a fantastic day on day 3 of the LVCC Division One match at Horsham, with Luke Wells scoring a sublime century to take his side to 351 all out in the first innings.

After the wonderful work of Meaker and Kartik in the 6 overs yesterday, the Surrey bowlers would have been looking to pick up early wickets on a blustery morning in Horsham. However, Wells and Arif had different ideas, as the pair batted sensibly and looked rather comfortable against the opening spells of Kartik and Meaker.

RHB changed the bowlers with Dernbach and Batty having a go, but both without success, as Sussex had reached parity, and started to build a lead which turned out to be big in the context of any game, let alone a low scoring one. Jon Lewis was brought on, and even though he didn’t claim a wicket, he began to make things happen, and his pressure finally lead to the first breakthrough of the morning. Kartik had Arif caught by Batty at slip on the last ball before lunch, but it certainly was the hosts’ session, as they went to the break 172-7, a lead of 48.

If Surrey thought that they would wrap up the innings quickly after lunch then once again they were mistaken, as former Surrey bowler Magoffin joined Wells and the pair began to build another partnership which took the game away from us.

They brought up their first batting point, which looked a long way off, just after 2 O’clock, and after being starved of the strike for a while, Wells completed a superb century, his second against us this season. He had made batting look so easy, and without his runs, Sussex wouldn’t have got anywhere near where they finished.

Soon after, the lead had gone past the 100 mark, and our bowlers didn’t seem to know what to do to remove either of the batsman. Lewis and Meaker took the new ball, and it was difficult for the bowlers, especially Lewis, who had to run straight into the wind. The new ball did the trick, as Magoffin flicked Lewis into the leg side, and Jason Roy took a good high catch at midwicket.

Once again Surrey would have been looking to finish off the innings sharpish, but as he did on the opening game of the season, Jimmy Anyon stuck in with Luke Wells and built another partnership to take Sussex to tea 8 down.

Kartik managed to get the wicket of Wells after tea, but the damage had already been done, as he went for a magnificent 127, and the lead had gone past 150 to make just 2 results possible. Panesar joined Anyon and the pair started to enjoy themselves, hitting the spin twins of Kartik and Batty all around Cricket Field Road, including 2 huge sixes from Anyon, and one from Monty.

It was quite embarrassing really, and when Batty finally picked up the wicket of Panesar, the final wicket had put on 80, to take their side to an all out total of 351, a lead of 227. The final 4 wickets had put on a massive 264, and our inability to finish off an innings was apparent again, something which has been a problem for a few years now.

Our batsman had 11 overs to bat, and once again Ramprakash and Roy opened up. Roy started typically attackingly, finding the boundary with a regular occurrence, dominating the partnership with the 42 year old batting more watchfully. After the 90 overs in the day had been bowled, an extra half hour was declared by the umpires due to the time lost in the game, and in the very first over of the half hour, Roy got a brute of a delivery from Magoffin which he couldn’t get his bat out of the way of, and went caught in the gully for 35. In the end we closed on 39-1, with nightwatchman Meaker joining Ramps.

Overall, a terrible day for us then. We have two major weaknesses in 4 day cricket; batting in the first innings and failing to finish off an innings, and they have both came out in abundance in this game. It is very worrying because if we lose this game, relegation would be a real prospect this season, and that would be the worst thing to happen to this young team.

Even though the pitch looks ok to bat on, it certainly won’t be easy to bat out the whole of tomorrow, but if we did, it would give us some much needed confidence for the rest of the season. 

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