Rudolph 50 leads to Scotland win

Surrey have beaten the Scottish Saltires by 21 runs via the Duckworth Lewis method at the Grange, to keep up their 100% start to this years CB40. The victory was largely thanks to a gritty half century from Jacques Rudolph.

Scotland won the toss and stuck Surrey in. Two enforced changes for Surrey, as Zafar Ansari had returned to Cambridge Uni and Tom Maynard missed out due to family reasons. Gary Wilson and Jacques Rudolph came in for them. Rory Hamilton-Brown and Steve Davies opened up again, but didn’t have the same impact as they did against Somerset. The skipper went for just 5 in the second over of the game, and Jason Roy quickly followed him back to the Pavilion 2 overs later. Rudolph joined Davies and the pair set about rebuilding the innings, but with the partnership on 40, Davies was caught fantastically by Drummond at mid on for 22, Surrey 60-3 in the 15^th.

The South African pair of Rudolph and de Bruyn needed to get their heads down, as well as ticking the scoreboard along. Rudolph was dominating the partnership, finding the gaps in the field with relative ease, but both struggled to find the boundary. Rudolph was looking the most comfortable of the two, and he lost his partner, when de Bruyn looked to work Mommsen down the ground and was caught and bowled for 16. Spriegel joined Rudolph, who went to a well made fifty, his first for Surrey, coming off 63 balls. However, Spriegel didn’t last long, as he was stumped for 15 and Surrey were in danger of posting a below par score.

Rudolph continued on his merry way, not changing his game plan at all, on a slow pitch which was showing to be difficult to bat on. Surrey took the batting powerplay with 5 overs to go, and with that, Rudolph looked to go over the top off Haq and was caught for 69. A good innings but with no acceleration, and with Surrey at 151-6, 200 looked a long way off. Wilson then went for just 9, caught at backward point. Batty and Lewis took Surrey to 187-7 off 40 overs, with both of them finding the boundary twice, including the first six of the game by Batty. Not a wonderful score, but not terrible with run scoring seemingly difficult for most of the batsmen.

After a short break for rain (and hail!), Scotland were given a revised target of 183 off 38 overs. Jade Dernbach picked up the first wicket before the host’s innings could really get going, having MacLeod caught behind. Jon Lewis was then introduced into the attack, and made an immediate impact having Josh Davey caught. The runs really started to dry up, and with Spriegel, Lewis didn’t give the Scottish batsman anything to hit, in an impressive spell of bowling. Spriegel then picked up 2 in quick succession, having Symes and Watts both stumped by Steve Davies. As he so often does, Gareth Batty also made an immediate impact when called upon, as he removed Mommsen caught and bowled. Scotland were 5 down for 66 and struggling.

Majid Haq joined Richie Berrington and the pair began to frustrate the Surrey attack. They found the boundary easier than any of the other batsmen could, and put their side into a good position to win the game. However, with the partnership on 50, Haq drove Batty straight to RHB to give the spinner his second wicket. The rain and hail then immediately came and brought a premature end to the match. Surrey had won by 21 runs via the D/L method.

So, 2 out of 2 for Surrey in the CB40, a solid start to the defence of the competition. It wasn’t a perfect performance today, but we did what we had to do in difficult conditions. We now travel to Kidderminster to take on Worcestershire in the LVCC on Wednesday, with a certain Kevin Pietersen expected to be named in the squad.