The opening day of the first championship meeting between Gloucestershire and Surrey at Bristol since 1992 went to the home side, who were indebted to Mark Alleyne’s best return with the ball for four years. The 36-year-old all-rounder’s five for 71 included his 400th first-class wicket for his adopted county. Yet, the irony was that the player-coach would not have pressed himself into action but for a toe injury to Alex Gidman.

The visitors meanwhile handed a debut to Nayan Doshi, a 24-year-old slow left-armer who has played for Saurashtra in the Ranji Trophy, is currently in England playing club cricket for Ealing and whose father is Dilip Doshi, the former Indian Test spinner who had a spells in county cricket with Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire. Doshi came in for Zaheer Khan, who has admitted to the Surrey management that he is still not one hundred percent fit, while Tim Murtagh returned to the line-up due Adam Hollioake’s absence with a pulled hamstring and a fracture to the little finger on his left hand.

With the loss to the new ball of the three batsmen in their side to have made centuries this season, and of Alistair Brown not long afterwards to catch at gully off an edged drive, the visitors were soon in a spot of bother at 66 for four. But with Rikki Clarke and Nadeem Shahid putting on 71 in the ten overs before lunch the Brown Caps went into the break on something of a high.

First to go was Scott Newman, who played around a straightening delivery. Jonathan Batty followed five overs later for a laboriously acquired five runs when Jon Lewis flattened his off stump. Mark Ramprakash, who eventually accepted the umpire’s decision, was then caught behind off Alleyne.

Clarke, who made light of the seaming ball, reached his fifty in 59 deliveries with the second of three boundaries in one over of Shabbir Ahmed; punishment that left the Pakistani nursing figures of 9-1-46-1. But soon after lunch the England one-day player, going at the ball, was caught off a leading edge in front of short extra cover.

Jon Lewis, whose first spell was a testing 9-5-19-1, was harshly dealt with upon his return by Shahid. The former Essex man reached his first half-century against Gloucestershire by pulling the 28-year-old seamer for six before reaching his landmark off 70 balls with a dismissive flick that sped to the square leg boundary.

But with Shahid misjudging the length against Alleyne and Azhar Mahmood walking into a delivery from James Averis the visitors were once again faced with the possibility of an embarrassingly inadequate total after winning the toss and electing to bat. Surrey had Martin Bicknell and Tim Murtagh, not to mention the gift of over fifty extras, to thank for the fact that they finished up a shade under three hundred.

The eighth wicket pair added 61 in seventeen overs, during which Murtagh was dropped at first slip, on 11, and Bicknell played on to Shabbir’s ninth no-ball of the innings, when the veteran all-rounder had 31 to his name. But Bicknell batted shrewdly for an unbeaten 47 off 74 balls. Unfortunately for him and the Oval outfit, he lost three partners in quick succession as the third batting point came into view.

Murtagh was bowled by the second ball of Alleyne’s third spell and Ormond was brilliantly caught low down to second slip’s left trying to take the bat away before Doshi miscued to cover.

Having seen their opponents struggle against the new ball Philip Weston and Tim Hancock almost saw the day out after Craig Spearman was trapped leg before by Bicknell for four – his fiftieth Gloucestershire scalp in first-class cricket. Twenty-three overs later, Hancock, who latched on to anything wide and short of a length, went to a catch behind the wicket off of Clarke, but the 22-year-old’s munificence must have left Batty close to the end of his tether.

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