Glamorgan are on top with one day left of the Second XI fixture at New Malden. They ground out a big first innings lead before striking early to leave Surrey 75 runs behind with 7 wickets remaining.
With Glamorgan resuming on 134/2, Surrey struck early as James Taylor had Asa Tribe caught behind by Stuart Van der Merwe off a back of a length ball.
Zen Malik was joined by Thomas Bevan and the two put on 33 runs before Bevan chipped a return catch to Cam Steel – the leg-spinner’s third wicket of the innings to leave Glamorgan 175-4. Alex Horton and Malik continued steadily as the Surrey bowlers kept things tight.
Horton’s innings was ended by a peach of a delivery from left-armer Seb Stuart-Reckling who cleaned him up with a classic piece of inswing bowling. At this point Glamorgan were still 11 runs in arrears but an excellent partnership between Malik and Henry Hurle began to build a healthy lead for the team from Cardiff.
Both batted sensibly and steadily moved the scoreboard along, the 84-run partnership was eventually broken when swung the ball through the gate to clean bowl Malik with the new ball for 69. Hurle continued with new partner Henry Podmore who brought some impetus to the innings, particularly severe on anything back of a length.
Shortly after reaching fifty, Hurle was bowled by a lovely delivery from Barnwell that thudded into the top of off-stump and Barnwell struck again four balls later as James Harris was caught excellently by Ben Geddes diving forward to leave Glamorgan 330/8.
New man in Tom Norton dropped anchor and enabled Podmore to continue scoring runs from the other end. The pair put on 52 runs with Norton finally bowled by a topspinner from Steel, Ben Morris followed the very next ball to a near identical delivery and Glamorgan were all out for 382 – a first innings lead of 163. Steel the pick of the bowlers with 5-76.
Steel and Ryan Patel opened up for Surrey but both were soon back in the pavilion. Steel feathered an edge behind off Matt Burton for two and Patel out lbw to the same bowler to leave Surrey 10-2.
Ben Geddes and Arjun Gill began the rebuild, Geddes looking particularly fluent with some eye-catching straight drives. Gill dealt almost exclusively in boundaries with nine fours in an innings of 43. With the day’s play drawing to a close, Gill was bowled by a terrific ball from Podmore – the last action of the day.
Surrey will resume on the third and final day on 88/3, still 75 runs behind Glamorgan.
Scorecard: https://ecb.nvplay.com/?tab=m_scorecard#mec475ffd-8b9d-415d-82e5-13c7a3035ac2
