Durham take lead despite Batty's 4

Durham have taken a slight advantage after Day 2 of the Championship game at the Oval, with a good final session for the Surrey bowlers dragging us back into the game.

Half centuries from Mark Stoneman and Dale Benkenstein have elevated their side up and beyond our first innings total of 237, but 4 wickets from Gareth Batty has restricted Durham to 279-9.

Early wickets were an absolute must this morning, but Durham, and Stoneman in particular, started aggressively, with the left hander racing to his half century within half an hour of play. Gareth Batty, in his second over of the day, made the breakthrough shortly after though, as he trapped Will Smith LBW.

Stoneman was still looking to be positive, despite Batty dramatically reducing the run rate after a poor start from Meaker and Keedy, but it was de Bruyn who picked up the second wicket, when Borthwick nicked off in his first over. A couple of deliveries later, Batty had Stoneman caught by Burns at short leg, as we started to pull it back a touch, but a Ben Stokes six took the lead below 100, as Durham went to lunch on 141-3.

De Bruyn was employed after lunch again, and was doing a good job of keeping the runs down, going at around and about 1 an over. He got the big wicket of Stokes when the England all-rounder played on, not too dissimilar to the way de Bruyn got Chris Rogers out last week. A couple of rain breaks brought an early tea, but when the players got back out in the middle, de Bruyn had his third when he got Collingwood LBW for 4, as the South African was slowly getting us back in the game.

Despite that wicket, a collapse similar to ours yesterday was needed, as they were trailing by just 55 when Collingwood went. However, that wasn’t to be straight away, as Benkenstein and Mustard played in their usual manner, with the latter typically attacking. They took their side to within one of parity, before Batty had Mustard LBW for 35, and when Durham had passed our score, Batty also removed Calum Thorp for his 4^th wicket.

Tim Linley was then given the new ball, and with the 4^th delivery, had Mark Wood LBW, before taking a smart catch off his own bowling to dismiss Chris Rushworth first ball. There was to be no hat trick, as debutant Ryan Buckley saw out his first ball, but it definitely posed the question: why delay taking the new cherry until 92 overs?

We couldn’t force the final wicket in the remaining 6 overs, as the experienced Benkenstein, unbeaten on 70, took his side to the close with a 42 run lead.

So I don’t think that we should be too disappointed with that display today. The 5 wickets in the final session has really got us back into the game, and it was needed, because most Surrey fans would admit that our first innings score wasn’t enough. Heading into the final session, they were trailing by just 55 with 6 wickets remaining, and if de Bruyn didn’t pick up the vital wicket of Collingwood early in the session, then it could have been a different story. De Bruyn is starting to prove why he is being selected in the side, as he has been very useful with the ball this season, and also got his first half century yesterday, which is good to see.

Tomorrow we have to knock the last wicket over as quickly as possible and hope that we can bat better second time around. The pitch isn’t too bad if you can get yourself in, but I would have thought that anything around 275 will possibly be enough to force home a victory.