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Scorecard

Surrey’s top four batsmen made it look like hard work, but their lower order came to the team’s rescue on the second day at Trent Bridge where the promised rain failed to materialise. There were two maiden fifties by promising young players in Matthew Spriegel and Chris Jordan, and, considering Nottinghamshire’s rather fragile batting so far this season, Surrey can consider themselves to have an advantage going into the third day.Surrey’s overnight pair continued to make heavy weather of it. After scarcely ten minutes, Jonathan Batty, with 21 off 88 balls, was bowled through the gate by Darren Pattinson by the ball of the day, whipping in viciously at genuine pace from outside the off-stump.Mark Ramprakash, for his part, continued to bat as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, spending 90 minutes while adding just 11 to his overnight 19 before he showed any inclination to attack the bowling. And ten minutes later a drizzle started and lunch was taken early. He was lucky on 23, playing a bad shot that skied a ball backward of point, for the fielder running back hard to miss a very difficult chance, and it ran for four. It might have been a kindness to put him out of his misery.In contrast, Usman Afzaal looked in good form almost from his arrival at the crease on the dismissal of Batty. He played some handsome strokes of real class, and tried to dominate Pattinson, whose superb bowling was Surrey’s main threat. He didn’t altogether succeed, but at one stage hit him for two superb cover drives in an over, and then pulled Charlie Shreck twice to the boundary. He overtook Ramprakash on 30, and reached his fifty just before the early lunch, off 61 balls.Andre Adams also bowled well, troubling Ramprakash, whose painful innings finally came to an end, for 42 off 166 balls and in 218 minutes, as he got a leading edge to a ball from Pattinson and was caught by Graeme Swann, diving forward at cover. Pattinson ran through to give him a distasteful send-off, a foolhardy act as umpire Peter Willey is well known for his strong stand on such behaviour, and Pattinson will not have heard that last of that.There followed a lengthy stand of 79 between Afzaal and Spriegel, the left-handed captain of Loughborough UCCE, who played quite an impressive, if rather slow, innings. Afzaal never recovered his pre-lunch fluency, but he should have reached a century, had he not lost patience, swung across the line at Shreck and lost his off stump for 89 (128 balls, 12 fours).After tea, Spriegel reached his maiden first-class fifty off 146 balls, a patient innings with occasional impressive strokes. One run later, though, he popped a ball from Swann to short leg, making Surrey 252 for 6. But then followed the most positive and impressive partnership of the innings, as Matt Nicholson and Jordan, supposedly bowling all-rounders, played with real flair and good judgement. Jordan was particularly impressive with his clean, orthodox driving.They added 47 in entertaining fashion when Nicholson, trying to bring up the 300 with a six, holed out on the long-on boundary for 38. However, Saqlain Mushtaq proved a more than adequate partner, in an inconspicuous way until he suddenly drove Adams over long-on for six. Jordan, despite a couple of sudden rustic heaves that failed to make contact, went on to reach his maiden first-class 50 off 66 balls, with a vigorous hook to the boundary off a bouncer from Shreck; he clearly has the ability to score many more.With only seven wickets down after two days’ play, rain having ruined the first day, Surrey will have to play well – or the home team badly – to force their first victory of the season. They have their noses in front in Nottingham, and day three should reveal whether they have the attitude and determination to make a good fist of it.

Forced to follow on after being dismissed for 170 in their first innings, Bangladesh have shown resilient defence in their second innings of the first Test against South Africa at Buffalo Park in East London.The hosts took just 50 minutes to finish off the Bangladesh first innings. Makhaya Ntini, the pick of the bowlers, wrapped it up with 5/19 in 15 overs. He would have ended with six wickets, and his best Test figures, but for a dropped catch by Graeme Smith in the slips.From the moment the Bangladesh second innings started one sensed a completely different attitude. A defiant opening stand, against some hostile bowling from Ntini and David Terbrugge, saw Bangladesh reach 22 before Javed Omar played his first loose shot, spooning a slow wide ball from Mornantau Hayward to Herschelle Gibbs at backward point.Habibul Bashar and Al Sahariar attacked the bowling at every opportunity,especially the many given by Hayward, who had trouble with both line and length, and soon posted a 56-run partnership. Bashar’s attacking innings came to an end on 21 when he mistimed a pull off Hayward to be caught on the long-leg boundary.Al Sahariar, showing some fine on-side shots, became the first Bangladesh player to score a Test 50 against South Africa. His half century came off 71 balls and included eight excellent boundaries. But with the return of Ntini the pressure was reapplied. First he had Sanwar Hossain dropped, again by Smith in the slips, and he then bowled Al Sahariar, off the stomach, for 71 excellent runs, which included 11 boundaries to all parts of the ground.Sanwar Hossain also played his shots, piercing the field on eight occasions to take him to 49 when he was adjudged leg before. Replays suggest that it was a close call, and that the umpire missed Terbrugge overstepping. When Tushar Imran was caught at silly mid-off off Claude Henderson for eight Bangladesh were 176/5 and in danger of losing the Test in three days.Khaled Mashud and Alok Kapali had other ideas. Applying themselves fully in the final hour they stayed focussed no matter what the South Africans dished up. At stumps Khaled Mashud had scored 32 from 143 balls and Alok Kapali nine from 62. A stern effort from the two players and a feather in the cap of the Bangladesh top order, who showed they are learning from experience.South Africa should still win it at a canter, but questions should be asked oftheir bowlers. Apart from Ntini, the pick in this innings as well, they were far too inconsistent.

Innings of the day
After Daniel Vettori had bailed out New Zealand’s batting on Friday afternoon, a Kiwi journalist asked at the close-of-play press conference whether any thought had been given to pushing him up the batting order. Unfortunately, he chose the wrong person to direct such a question to. “What, above me, you mean?” growled the man in the chair, Jacob Oram. And yet, it was a valid observation. Oram has struggled against this English attack – in five Test innings since March, he had made 76 runs with a best of 30 at Napier, and his nemesis, Ryan Sidebottom, had claimed his wicket on each of the last four occasions. And yet today he put such woes behind him, and in conjunction with the rookie, Daniel Flynn, rescued New Zealand from the depths of 120 for 4 (effectively five), with a gutsy and essential 101.Body blow of the day
On Thursday afternoon, England were a touch bemused by Brendon McCullum’s onslaught. In seam-friendly conditions, they plugged away on a full length but found themselves being lamped for 97 of the finest counterattacking runs you’ll ever see. The penny dropped at the close of play, and they resolved to treat him with more aggression the next time he came to the middle. So it proved today, with Stuart Broad employed as the baby-faced assassin. McCullum persisted in standing two feet outside his crease, but he was peppered with a selection of well-directed bouncers and eventually pinned by an arrow-straight lifter that thudded sickingly into his unguarded forearm. Thankfully X-rays showed no break, and he was later able to resume his innings, but the breach had been made, and England did everything they could to flood through it.Shots of the day
Oram and Daniel Flynn, however, held them back manfully in a 132-run stand. Though Flynn remained resolutely one-paced, the tension in Oram’s innings dissipated as the afternoon session wore on, and by the time New Zealand had passed the 200 mark there was no holding him back. He climbed into consecutive balls from Broad, flatbatting him through midwicket for four before timing him sweetly past backward point for another boundary, then sent the members scattering as he came down the track to lift Kevin Pietersen into the Pavilion for six. As he approached the nervous nineties, Michael Vaughan called for the new ball and threw it straight away to Sidebottom, but Oram displayed not a shred of nerves as he cut the first ball, straight-drove the fifth, then clubbed the last through the covers to race to his fifth Test hundred.Ball of the day
And yet, it was Sidebottom who had the final say with an astounding delivery that pitched on off stump, hit the seam, and then swung late as a devastating final measure. Oram had no chance as the ball burst through the gate to clip his off bail, and he was reduced to looking back in bemusement afterwards to work out what had happened. By then, Sidebottom was at his right-hand side, offering a sporting word of congratulation for an excellent matchsaving performance. It was a touching gesture at the end of a good-natured contest.Tactical substitution of the day
It worked for New Zealand on Sunday, and again for England today. The ball won’t do a thing if it ain’t got that swing, and so both sides lobbied successfully for a change. And what a difference it made. After eight innocuous overs, Sidebottom was suddenly a bowler transformed – having pushed every delivery across the right-hander’s bows, his first attempt with the new ball bent wickedly back into James Marshall’s pads, to send him on his way for a ninth-ball duck. Thereafter, survival for New Zealand was an entirely different proposition. It’s remarkable quite how much rests on the choice of Duke ball.Misplaced frustration of the day
Ross Taylor wasn’t best pleased when Simon Taufel sent him on his way in the morning session, lbw for 20 in Monty Panesar’s first over. The ball dipped late and jabbed Taylor on his toe in front of middle stump, although there was more than just a suggestion of an inside edge – not least from the grumpy manner in which Taylor made his way from the field of play. And yet, inconclusive though the replays proved to be, they did at least demonstrate that the ball, after impact, looped gently into the hands of Paul Collingwood at slip – and therefore he should have been given out anyway.Forgotten hero of the day
Jamie How is not a man who basks in the limelight. He was New Zealand’s captain at the start of this trip, although nobody really noticed because the IPL was in full swing; he made a ballsy 92 in the Hamilton Test victory back in March, but his efforts were forgotten amid the dramas of England’s final-day collapse. And likewise today, it was his gritty half-century at the top of the order that set New Zealand on their way to safety. The dramas of McCullum’s injury and Oram’s hundred condemned his efforts to a footnote, but by surviving the first 15 overs on Sunday evening, as well as the first session before lunch today, he allowed his team to live to fight another day.

The cancellation of Australia’s tour of Pakistan could have been foretold, much before the terrorists struck in Murree and Taxila. Once the principle of neutral venues had been accepted, the tour was off.After all, it was the Australians who had refused to play in Sri Lanka in the 1996 World Cup and they had taken the West Indies along with them.In many respects, the Australians are like the Americans, they feel safe among their own. I cannot, in all conscience, say that their concerns for their players were unfounded.Of course, the terrorists can strike and, on the face of it, Pakistan seems to have become a high-risk country and that’s the view that one would get from the Diplomatic Enclave in Islamabad. But from the measures that the United States is adopting in the name of Homeland Security, the United States too would be a high-risk country. But international sports events are not being cancelled and the US Open tennis tournament is due to get underway in New York in a few days time. New York is the city where the World Trade Centre was located and which is now called Ground-Zero. But everyone is entitled to his own perception of danger.When I went to Nairobi, some 20 years ago, the hotel manager advised me not to go walking about at any time of day or night for fear that I might get mugged. I don’t know what it is like these days but when I went to South Africa many years later, I stayed in my hotel in the evenings and even so the Pakistan team’s physio was mugged on the grounds of the hotel which was in a posh suburb. Danger lurks in many forms but you can’t opt out of life because danger exists.Some of the Australian players have been vocal about not touring Pakistan. One of them has been Mark Waugh. He has good reasons to give Pakistan a miss, provided he would have been selected. It was in Pakistan that he claimed that Salim Malik had offered him (and Shane Warne) a huge sum of money to “tank” the Karachi Test match.At that time, he did not disclose his relationship with a bookie who was then simply called John but who turned out to be a major player in gambling on cricket matches.Mark Waugh and Warne’s association with Mr John had not been one-off and he regularly received ‘pocket money’ from John for providing him with ‘innocent’ information!Twin-brother Steve has blown hot and cold about Australia’s tour, as if, getting signals or reading the mind of the Australian Cricket Board.Pakistan must now decide on a neutral venue. Last week, I had recommended that this option be shut out as I had wanted Pakistan to call the tour off. Now the Australians have beaten us to the punch. It re-arranges the scenery on the stage. If the Test matches are to be played at a neutral venue, so be it.The victory has already been handed to the terrorists and Australian troops who are in Afghanistan, as a part of a coalition military force, would have every right to wonder what they are doing there, putting their lives on the line. Pakistan is a victim of terrorist attacks because it too is a part of that coalition. Perhaps, the Australian High Commission in Islamabad is not aware of this.India has blooded a new wicket-keeper, Parthiv Patel, who is 17 years and some months old. The excitement shown at picking such a young player is such that one gets the impression that the Indian tour selection committee has invented sliced bread.Patel looks even younger than his age, as did Sachin Tendulkar when he toured Pakistan in 1989. But to us in Pakistan, catching them young is routine. Hanif Mohammad was 17 years and 300 days old when he was picked for Pakistan in 1952. Some of us forget that he was not only a batsman but first-choice wicket keeper.We now remember Hanif as one of the great batsman of his time. But his brother Mushtaq was even younger when he first played for Pakistan against the West Indies and Wes Hall in Lahore.There has been Khalid Hasan who played for Pakistan in England in 1954, Hasib Ahsan and Nasimul Ghani who were probably school boys when taken on Pakistan’s tour of the West Indies.Zaheer Abbas too looked terribly young when I first cast eyes on him and he went on to make a thundering double century on Pakistan’s tour of England in 1971. But the crown rests on the head of Hasan Raza who was 13 years and some months when he wore the Pakistan cap, prompting a lyrical editorial in The Times of London.The Indian school-boy Patel, looks a fine prospect and may turn out to be another Wasim Bari. Bari too was very young when he toured England in 1967 but one look at him and one knew that he would go on to be one of the best the cricket world would see. But Patel must not be spoilt because he hasn’t even started to shave. Test cricket is serious business and no quarter is given. But once selected, he should be persevered with, something we did not do with Hasan Raza.

ADELAIDE, Oct 25 AAP – New South Wales batsmen Matthew Phelps, Corey Richards and Michael Bevan all fell cheaply to leave their side at 3-85 at lunch on the opening day of its Pura Cup match against South Australia at Adelaide Oval.Hard-hitting youngster Michael Clarke was unbeaten on 18 and Simon Katich was on 13.After being sent into bat, Phelps was the first batsman out, caught behind pushing forward to a Paul Rofe delivery for 22, after an opening stand of 33 with Richards.Richards, who had looked shaky in his innings, was then caught at gully for 16, attempting to drive Michael Miller, who picked up the wicket in his second over.Then Bevan was dismissed for 15, caught behind off a short, sharp delivery from left arm paceman Mark Harrity.Bevan initially set himself for a backfoot defensive stroke, but attempted to pull his bat away at the last moment, getting a fine edge to SA wicketkeeper Shane Deitz.

Sri Lankan cricket officials have requested that the semi-finals of the ICCChampions Trophy in September be staged at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium, Sri Lanka’s newest and most controversial cricket venue.The interim committee running the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka(BCCSL) has spoken to the International Cricket Council and is now awaiting a response.Previously, all the matches had been scheduled to be played in Colombo, at the Sinhalese Sports Club and Premadasa International Stadium, primarily to ease the logistical difficulties of hosting 12 teams and broadcasting 15 days of cricket in 18 days.But the interim committee would prefer the matches to be staged at Dambulla,situated in a dry zone, to safeguard the tournament against the threat of anearly north-eastern monsoon, and to take cricket to the rural outstations,helping to spread the game.The eco-friendly stadium was built in just 161 days and staged its inauguralinternational match against England in March 2001. However, soon after thatgame, the stadium became the focus of a government led investigation into the cricket board after allegations of mismanagement.With payments to contractors then frozen, the final construction work was not completed and the stadium was placed under lock and key. The deadlock rumbled on for nearly a year, with confusion over the legality of the lease with the Buddhist temple owning the land prolonging the dispute.Finally, earlier this year, the BCCSL was cleared to pay outstanding bills owed to contractors, paving the way for international cricket to return. Since then authorities have been understandable keen to utilise a facility that has drained significant financial resources.

The Pakistan team management, in a belated effort to cover up its earlier folly, Thursday agreed to release the players attending the training camp.The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), in an announcement, said: “The PCB has released the players in the Pakistan training camp for one day (March 29) to enable them to play for their respective departments in the National One-day tournament.”Yawar Saeed, manager Pakistan team and incharge of the camp, has accordingly advised the players to report back in the camp on the evening of March 29. The training camp will continue till April 1.”The Pakistan team management had earlier rejected PCB’s proposal to allow the players to represent their departments. The PCB had tried to convince the team management considering that the players had a moral obligation to their departments, particularly in a premier one-day competition.PIA raised most of the hue and cry, and rightly so, as the team management’s arrogance have left them on the verge of being ousted from the current tournament. PIA’s seven players – Wasim Akram, Saqlain Mushtaq, Shoaib Malik, Abdul Razzaq, Azhar Mahmood, Yousuf Youhana and Faisal Iqbal – are in the 16-man squad for Sharjah that is training at Gaddafi Stadium since March 22.The PCB has been criticized from right, left and centre for holding a training camp during the midst of domestic season. The critics have questioned how many camps have benefited the Pakistan team as fitness of the players continue to remain below par while the fielding standards is on the decline.Nevertheless, the other interesting argument that has come recently is that the PCB is giving a final free hand to the team management before it is held accountable for the recent failures.

The PCB has decided to use Kookaburra balls in domestic cricket from the ongoing season to keep with international standards. The imported balls were used in domestic competitions from 2000 until 2007, when the Ijaz Butt-led administration encouraged the use of locally-manufactured balls.The decision came after the PCB’s Executive Coordination Committee (ECC) met with the national coaching staff, captain, and chief selector to discuss various areas of improvement for the Pakistan team.”It was agreed that domestic cricket requires improvements in fielding, fitness, application of technique and other areas,” the PCB said. “The ECC has unanimously decided to use Kookaburra balls in both first-class and domestic limited-overs cricket. It has also been decided that during the national camps, the same brand of cricket balls used for practice will be used in that particular tour.”The Kookaburra ball will be used from the fifth round of the President’s Trophy, starting November 2. The players will continue to use the Grays ball for the fourth round, which starts on Sunday. However, the PCB director Javed Miandad was against the idea of using imported balls, but was out voted when the ECC invited Twenty20 captain Mohammad Hafeez, coach Dav Whatmore, fast-bowling coach Mohammad Akram and chief selector Iqbal Qasim for the meeting.Some PCB members were reportedly unhappy with the quality of the locally manufactured balls, following complaints from players over the last two seasons. The balls were said to have hard leather, causing player injuries while fielding, and on occasions tore within 20 overs in first-class games. However, the chief executive of Grays, Khawar Anwar Khawaja, brushed aside the reports. Grays have been supplying balls to the PCB since 1973.”We are extremely unhappy as ultimately the PCB is denting Pakistan’s own industry by giving preference to the imported balls,” Khawaja told ESPNcricinfo. “We are always flexible towards complaints, ready to talk and produce the best ball according to their demands. I agree there were complaints about the hardness of the ball two years back because we were asked to make machine-made balls and it obviously takes time for it to mature.”The white Kookaburra balls are used in one-day internationals, while the red one is used in Tests in most nations apart from India (SG) and England (Duke).Miandad had objected to the use of imported balls while announcing the revamped domestic season last month.”It is just an unwanted debate to have a Kookaburra ball assuming that it will enhance the quality of cricket,” Miandad said. “Quality actually lies with the bowler and batsman. We have produced legendary bowlers who used locally made cricket balls. To me it’s just an excuse to have a Kookaburra or Duke ball. It will only increase the costs and nothing else.”Pakistan have no home series until October 2013. However, they are scheduled to tour India, Zimbabwe, West Indies and England (Champions Trophy), where they are likely to use the Kookaburra ball.

Hampshire marked their first appearance at their new ground with aresounding 124-run victory over Worcestershire in an extraordinary day’scricket in which 20 wickets fell.Hampshire began the day in a powerful position 89 runs ahead at 16 without loss in their second innings but fell away in overcast conditions to 159 all out midway between lunch and tea.All the Worcestershire pace bowlers got among the wickets with AlamgirSheriyar finishing as the most successful for the second time in the matchwith figures of four for 30. This gave him match figures of eight for 115,reflecting his accuracy and hostility .For Hampshire, opening batsman Derek Kenway grafted 28 overs for his 30 but it was not until bright sunshine replaced the clouds that the home side concocted some resistence. Adrian Aymes, a man who loves just such situations, batted two and a half hours for his unbeaten 37 and sharing in an important stand of 41 for the ninth wicket with Alex Morris.Worcestershire were left with more than four sessions to get the 233 they needed to win but they never looked like doing so. Phil Weston, Graeme Hick importantly, Vikram Singh and David Leatherdale were all dismissed for single-figure scores and at 33 for four there was no way back.Spinner Shaun Udal ran through the middle order and the only prolongedresistence came in contrasting ways from opener Anurag Singh and AustralianAndy Bichel. Singh took 90 balls to reach 33 while Bichel went on the attack, hitting five fours in his 30.It did not last. Worcestershire lost their last five batsmen for nine runs, Udal taking four for 32 and Morris four for 27.The umpires, Barrie Leadbeater and John Steele, were happy enough withthe new batting strip, attaching no blame to the groundstaff but they diddeprive Worcestershire 0.25 of a point under new regulations for not bowlingthe required 16 overs an hour throughout the match.

Morning SessionThat this was Yorkshire’s best session of the match does not mean that the champions had the better of it, there continued to be too many deliveries that were more hard to reach than they were hard to play – a fact hard to pardon at the pace Hamilton and Fellows bowl at. As with yesterday Ryan Sidebotton was the pick of the bowlers, managing to pass the edge at times and to restrict the batsmen with his left arm seamers while the other quick bowlers were rattling along at better than five an over.The home side did, however, finally manage to dispose of the Surrey openers, Ward was first to go, bowled for seventy, with the score on 161 trying to continue the dominance he and Butcher had enjoyed over Chris Silverwood, he was shortly followed by Butcher playing at Kirby in similar fashion. The brief pause in scoring rate after that was the only respite the scorers had all session and was followed by yet another flurry of boundaries as Stewart weighed into Kirby and Ramprakash launched Fellows for the first six of the match. Surrey are 100 runs ahead at lunch on day 2 with Ramprakash looking comfortable and Stewart imperious.Afternoon SessionApril continues to shower the cricket following public with unaccustomed cheer as the sun continued to shine on Surrey’s tour de force, Stewart and Ramprakash continue to push on at four runs per over in front of another good crowd, Yorkshire’s slim hopes of saving this game are now dependent on either a huge change in the weather or a miraculous batting performance in the second innings – preferably both.It is as well that most MPs are too limited to appreciate cricket or on this evidence the county championship would surely be banned for cruelty, the sad truth about Yorkshire’s bowling figures is that for much of the time the run rate is only kept below a run a ball by the fact that neither batsman has been able to reach the damn thing. In this session Lehmann’s side have given up all pretence of trying to win the game by contrast their opponents streaked to a thousand runs for the season in only their second match having lost a grand total of ten wickets before Kirby finally got Ramprakash to edge behind with thescore on 309. It was a good delivery but the wicket was purchased in large part by the scarcity of reachable fodder, nobody can say though that his confrontations with Surrey have been anything less than high entertainment in three matches he has taken seven wickets for 230 at nearly five runs per over.The breakthrough seemed to give Yorkshire’s bowlers renewed hope as the next few overs, from Sidebottom and Kirby showed a fire and accuracy that had hitherto been lacking, for the first time in the game it looked as though two Yorkshire bowlers were intent on taking a wicket, but with the first innings lead marching towards two hundred it seemed too little too late. It was a lovely change to see Kirby putting the ball in the right place however, his whippy action appeared to straighten and he looked, for a while at least the bowler who brushed several teams aside last season.Despite the improved bowling the visitors continued to be able to keep the scoreboard ticking over, the pace with which they eliminated the home side and then ran up three hundred runs also allowed Ali Brown the luxury of a steady start, Yorkshire are one of the few teams in recent years to have contained the explosive middle order batsman restricting him to just a single century in recent seasons and dismissing him for numerous single figure scores. Fellows was brought back into the attack when Sidebottom tired with instructions to frustrate the batsmen while Kirby charged in at the other end. Stewart was not in the mood to throw away his wicket in the seventies having gifted it to Sussex on 99 the week before and Brown too was content to ride out the spell.Brown’s patience was such that his first boundary came forty minutes into his innings it ran out however shortly afterwards when he played loosely at a new bowler Gavin Hamilton who looked amazed to take the wicket – it was major a victory for the tykes, they’d finally got someone out for less than sixty. The arrival of Nadeem Shahid saw the scoring rate pick up almost straight away though as he slammed Hamilton for two boundaries in the the eighty ninth over before Stewart brought up the 350 in the ninetieth, seven bonus points to one a fair measure of the game’s progress to date.The biggest surprise of the afternoon session came shortly before the break when Stewart, for the second time in two innings got himself out in the nineties, caught by Wood from the mediocre, but at least often disciplined bowling Fellows for 96, Shahid and Azhar then took the score to within spitting distance of 400 and five batting points.Evening SessionWith the bounce of this pitch increasingly erratic and its cracks widening Shahid and Azhar set about the Yorkshire attack with alacrity. For the second game in succession the championship favourites lower middle order displayed a sense of duty to the cause of fast runs at any cost that even Stuart Surridge, champion of the fifties style of “positive cricket” would have found admirable. Their partnership lasted a bare fifty runs before Shahid’s departure prompted a mini-collapse which saw both Tudor and Bicknell depart cheaply, Azhar and Surrey’s last centurian, Ian Salisbury, who hadn’t actually had to bother batting in their previous demolition job then added yet another speedy fiftystand, Surrey eventually took the first innings lead to a vast 370 on a failing wicket, although it is arguable that they should have packed up and stopped the torture when Salisbury was caught for a brutal 27 from 28 balls.That Yorkshire were able to claim Surrey’s last five wickets for just eighty runs is pathetically small comfort, that four able batsmen sacrificed their wickets for a few quick runs in the opposing cause is ominous.The scale of Surrey’s first innings achievement and Bicknell and Tudor’s pique at being dismissed so cheaply was brought into sharp focus in the eight balls of Yorkshire’s second innings. In Martin Bicknell’s opening wicket maiden he beat, befuddled and drew an edge from Wood and then, to rub salt in the would it took the increasingly potent Alex Tudor just two balls to tear Richardson out clean bowled.The champions have been utterly outclassed in each of six sessions so far, they have little, or no, hope of survival in this game, their only crumbs of comfort are that Kirby joined Sidebottom in bowling well for the latter part of the Surrey innings and that Lehmann’s second innings wicket is still intact.From the other side of this great rivalry Surrey may be concerned with the occasional dropped catch and a failure to convert enough fifties into centuries. Both seem rather mild complaint for a side which is seemingly scoring runs and taking wickets at will, and whose two best players (Thorpe and Saqlain) and captain are yet to make an appearance this season.