Fiery Meaker leads fightback on Day 2

A fiery spell from Stuart Meaker has put Surrey back in the LVCC Division One match against Sussex at Horsham, after reducing the hosts to 90-6 on a day badly affected by the weather.

What a difference 6 overs can make to a game. Sussex started the morning 81-2, trailing by just the 43 runs, and looking for a large first innings lead. However, Stuart Meaker set apart an angry spell of bowling this morning to turn the game on its head.

He found success with the very first ball of the day, when he got a short ball to leap at the oppositions skipper, Yardy, who could only fend the ball to Ramps at gully. A perfect start to the morning, and that was just the start of it. Joe Gatting came to the middle, and could only last until Meaker’s next over, when the England seamer beat him for pace and sent his off stump flying.

There was then a heavy rain shower, which forced the players off for 45 minutes and give Meaker a breather.

When the players got back out there, the wickets continued to tumble. Steve Davies had managed to get back from Birmingham to replace Gary Wilson, who played for the first 10 minutes of the day, and he was in the action straight away, as Murali Kartik got Luke Wright to edge behind. Wicketkeeper Brown managed to get off the mark, but didn’t last long either, as Meaker beat him for pace and trapped him LBW.

The rain then came, and didn’t stop, as the day was brought to an early end shortly after half past two. If you said to me yesterday that most of the day would be washed out I wouldn’t have been too disappointed, but after the start we had today, it was rather annoying. Sussex had lost 4 wickets for 9 runs in the 6 overs today, and add the wicket of Nash to that from last night, they had lost 5 for just 10.

Even though the job is only half done, our bowlers have once again done a magnificient job, and obviously in particular Stuart Meaker, who has one of the best strike rates in the Division. Murali Kartik also seems to have settled in well, showing form that he failed to produce in the recent IPL.

The forecast for tomorrow isn’t the greatest, but there is a good chance that we will get more play than today, so there is plenty of time for a result in this game. If we are able to complete the job before they can get to 150, or maybe before they reach our score, it would be good, but Luke Wells seems to like to bat against us and Arif is no mug, so we need to make sure that we don’t let this slip.

When we do bowl them out, we will obviously need to improve with the bat on the rather dismal performance in the first innings, but once again it shows that our bowlers are up to it in this division and if the batters can start to perform, we would be one of the stronger teams in the country.