Gus Atkinson stood out with the ball and Mark Stoneman with the bat in Surrey’s pre-season friendly with Sussex on Monday & Tuesday this week.
Surrey spent the entirety of Monday in the field, taking four Sussex wickets from the 90 overs they got through. Atkinson removed both Tom Haines & Stiaan van Zyl as well as catching Tom Clark off the bowling of Jamie Overton. That all came after Jordan Clark had bounced out Aaron Thomason.
As well as Atkinson, Clark & Overton, there were overs for Matt Dunn, Rikki Clarke, Liam Plunkett, Ryan Patel and spinners Daniel Moriarty & Will Jacks.
Tuesday came Surrey’s turn to bat, with Stoneman top scoring with 70 from 126 balls in his second stint at the crease. In fact, having been 174/10 after 62 overs with only Jamie Smith (33) spending a prolonged period in the middle, several Surrey batsmen made a better fist of things second time around. Clark was 59 not out come stumps while Rikki Clarke (40) and Laurie Evans (36) also spent valuable time at the crease.
You can view the full scorecard here.
All four of Surrey’s England Test contingent from the recent India tour (Rory Burns, Ben Foakes, Ollie Pope & Amar Virdi) were rested for this match while overseas players Hashim Amla and Kemar Roach were not yet available. Jason Roy & Reece Topley are now returning to England following the white-ball tour of India while Sam & Tom Curran have stayed on for the Indian Premier League.
Surrey’s pre-season match programme will be completed over the Easter weekend with a three-day fixture against Middlesex at The Kia Oval from Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th April. A live stream of all three days will be available on kiaoval.com.
