Sublime Solanki slays Saltires

Vikram Solanki’s first Surrey century has led us to a relatively comfortable victory over Scotland in the YB40 at The Grange.

Solanki struck 4 sixes in his unbeaten 109, as we posted 237-5 before we restricted the hosts to 223-8 to complete a 14 run victory.

Despite a possibility of rain later in the day, Gareth Batty elected to bat after winning the toss. There was one change from the defeat to Lancashire last week, as Tom Jewell came in for Rory Burns. It wasn’t the best start to our innings though, as Jason Roy’s poor early season form continued when he was caught for just 11.

However, the former Worcestershire pair of Steve Davies and Vikram Solanki didn’t let that early wicket affect them, as they built a partnership similar to many they have done before. Solanki looked particularly fluent early in his innings, as he produced the first two maximums of the day and went to his half century at just under a run a ball.

The partnership was quick, if not rapid, and Davies followed Solanki to his 50 as the pair had put on over 100 for the second wicket. However, despite 12 coming off the first 4 balls of a Michael Leask over, Davies looked for another big shot but could only find Dewald Nel at long off to go for 54. That wicket completely took the momentum out of the innings, as the out of form Zander de Bruyn struggled to score at any sort of rate.

As he has shown in the majority of his List A innings over the last 13 months, de Bruyn took an age to get himself in, and when the rate was needed to be increased, he got himself out. His 35 ball stay could only conjure up 11 runs, which sucked the impetus out of the game and starved the superb Solanki of the strike.

Gary Wilson was in at 5 and scored 23 in half the balls that de Bruyn faced before he was caught, but that allowed Solanki to take over the mantle of scoring, bringing up his first Surrey century with a maximum off Nel. It had come off 109 balls, and if we managed to get him on strike more often in the last 10 overs or so, then we may have got more than the 237-5, with Jewell (11) and Lewis (4*) adding some late runs also.

In truth, Scotland never looked like chasing down our total. Dernbach and Lewis kept it extremely tight early on, and the latter made the breakthrough when Cross was bowled for a slow 9. Boundaries were particularly hard to come by, and Chris Tremlett continued his good form from the last couple of games, by first having Coleman caught by de Bruyn, and then trapping Chalmers LBW for 20.

Gary Keedy had Preston Mommsen caught behind off just his second delivery, with Scotland falling to 81-4, and the required rate creeping above 7. Iqbal was then run out before Keedy had his second when he bowled Leask for 1. Calum MacLeod and Majid Haq didn’t give up though, as they put on an annoying partnership for the 7^th wicket, with the former smashing a quick-fire 50 to give his side a slight chance. Haq retired hurt after pulling a hamstring, but Gordon Goudie came out and gave us a scare by hitting a 6-ball 15 before Lewis had him caught by Batty.

32 runs were required off the final two overs, which is certainly doable, and MacLeod got it down to 24 needed off 8, before Dernbach bowled him with a yorker for 59. With 20 required off the last over, Drummond and the returning Haq could only muster 5, as we finally completed the job by 14 runs.

So that was the perfect game for us with the form that we have been in recently, even if they did get closer than they should have. It’s one of those games where if we win, no one will bat an eyelid, but if we lost, we would have been (with no disrespect to Scotland) the laughing stock of the county circuit. Solanki batted brilliantly and Davies once again looked good, but the likes of Roy and de Bruyn will be disappointed with their showing against a vastly inferior opposition.

Lots of improvements are still needed, with a big week ahead for us. Wednesday we play Derbyshire live on sky in this competition, with a loss meaning that we may well struggle to make it through to the next round. Then, on Thursday it is without doubt our biggest game of the season so far, as we once again come up against Derby, this time in the Championship. They’re the only team below us in Division One, and a win is an absolute must.