Burns fires Surrey ahead on Day 1

A second Championship century of the summer from Rory Burns has lit up an attritional first day of cricket between Middlesex and Surrey at Lord’s.

On a cloudless day, Graeme Smith did the right thing and elected to bat first. There were no real shocks in the final X1 selected, with Lewis and Keedy the two left out from the 13 man squad. However, Smith’s decision wasn’t immediately looking fruitful, as runs were hard to come by, and the skipper edged Murtagh to Malan at slip for a 15 ball duck: his third single figure score in 4 innings. His form is very much reminding me of Rudolph last year; let’s hope that isn’t the case.

Despite Gary Wilson doing a fine job at 3 last week, a returning Arun Harinath was back in his usual position. He and Burns had to work extremely difficult for any success, as even though there were no real alarms, the quartet of Finn, Murtagh, Roland-Jones and Collymore were keeping it very tight, and were not giving the left handed pair anything to go at. After 29 overs in the first session, we went to lunch on just 45-1.

After the break, we managed to score at a slightly higher rate, frustrating the Middlesex attack, who had to turn to the part time spin of Stirling and Malan without success. Burns went to his half century off of 165 balls shortly before the hundred partnership between the pair was brought up. The bowlers would have been sick of the sight of Burns and Harinath after their 200-plus partnership at the Oval last year, and Harinath went to a 128 ball fifty, his first of the season, shortly before the tea break.

Even though we were just 1 wicket down heading into the final session, we hadn’t got away from the home side, and when Harinath was caught behind off Finn for 61, Middlesex would have sensed a chance to get themselves back into the game. However, Vikram Solanki, playing in his 300^th First Class match, joined Burns at the crease and looked to up the scoring rate, seeing the Banstead keeper through to his first century at Lord’s, coming up off 251 balls. It had been a superb knock from the young man, with him also passing 1000 runs in FC cricket, in this just his 14^th match.

Solanki was looking in top form, rapidly moving onto 43, before he edged behind off Collymore. He’s had starts in all 4 of his innings, but yet to have kicked on and made that big contribution. Burns and de Bruyn looked to take us to close just the 3 down, but Murtagh had his second when Burns played on for 114, as we closed on 267-4.

I think we should be happy with that first day, despite the run rate being relatively slow. Smith failed yet again, but Burns stood tall and played a sublime knock. It wasn’t the most fluent innings from him, as he really had to dig in early on, but to have hit 2 hundreds in your first 4 innings this season is superb. One negative, if you can call it a negative, is that he is yet to go on and make a ‘daddy’ hundred, with his highest score 121, but I’m sure those will come.

Good to see Harinath in the runs, and Solanki looked good again even though he couldn’t kick on. Hopefully Davies (24*) and de Bruyn (12*) can kick on tomorrow, as 400 is a minimum on this pitch.