An intriguing day of Second XI Championship cricket at New Malden saw Surrey and Hampshire battle it out as the latter were all out for 355 at the stroke of stumps.
Hampshire would have reason to believe that they justified their decision to bat first whilst Surrey’s bowlers kept chipping away with wickets at regular intervals and prevented the visitors from running away with the game.
Amar Virdi (3/39) and Seb Stuart Reckling (3/35) were the pick of the bowlers for Surrey although an unbeaten 95 wicketkeeper AJ MacEwen, as well as half-centuries from WJ La Fontaine-Jackson (65) and SJ Ashman (85), took Hampshire to a competitive total.
Surrey got off to a promising start with the new ball as left-arm seamer Stuart-Reckling wrecked the stumps of opposing skipper JJ Weatherley (2) with a ripping inswinger. Number three BA Mayers (5) also departed early after he shouldered his arms to a Matt Dunn delivery that nipped back in sharply.
FD Gordon and La Fontaine-Jackson stabilised Hampshire’s innings but their fifty-run stand was broken by a toe-crushing yorker to Gordon (27) by Nathan Barnwell. From there on, La Fontaine-Jackson and Ashman soaked the pressure and steered the visitors to the lunch interval without any further damage.
The duo got in their groove and batted with fluency in the afternoon session before Virdi got La Fontaine-Jackson caught and put an end to the 134-run stand for the fourth wicket.
Surrey grabbed three more wickets in quick succession – Virdi removed Ashman and K Dhariwal (0) and EV Jack (0) was run out by Barnwell – to have Hampshire struggling on 217 for 7 at the cusp of tea.
MacEwen and JA Wright, however, anchored Hampshire’s innings and got them out of a hole with some gutsy batting. They added 117 crucial runs for the eighth wicket before Dunn struck with the second new ball.
The visitors increased their total by 21 runs by the time Stuart-Reckling cleaned up the tail, pinning EC Martin (7) lbw and bowling over JA Turner (2), making good use of the new Dukes in the process.
