HEMP HOLDS UP SURREY by Marcus Hook
Surrey Brown Caps 280-8 (40 Overs) v Glamorgan Dragons 227 (40 Overs). Surrey Brown Caps win by 53 runs.

David Hemp's 59 off 57 balls, the highest individual innings by a Glamorgan batsman in this summer's Pro40 League, held Surrey up on their way to their third straight win in the competition - the Brown Caps second in as many days. With the Welshmen being dismissed for 227, the margin of the hosts' victory was 53 runs.

The Dragons' skipper shared in fifty partnerships with Richard Grant and Ben Wright. Following Jimmy Maher's departure in the sixth over to a stupendous catch at mid-off by Chris Jordan and Mohammad Akram adding the scalp Alex Wharf to that of Maher in the twelfth over, Grant dropped anchor for an hour and twenty minutes to compile a dogged 37.

With both Hemp and Wright departing in the thirtieth over, when Matt Nicholson was brought back to bowl his sixth, the visitors were left needing an impossible 116 off 60 balls. Hemp, backing away, had the top of his off stump clipped by a slower delivery. Moments later Wright slapped the tall Australian straight to Chris Schofield at gully.

Schofield then had Mark Wallace stumped down the leg-side and with the former Lancashire leg-spinner turning catcher in the next over to account for Michael O'Shea at backward point, the final outcome was put beyond any remaining doubt. However, that did not stop Andrew Davies providing some belated entertainment by hitting three consecutive sixes off Alistair Brown's occasional off-spin.

Earlier, Surrey's best total in this season's Pro40 League contained three half-centuries. Scott Newman was the first to cash in on some undisciplined bowling. The left-hander was particularly dismissive of Huw Waters, whose second and third overs went for 26. James Benning, playing second fiddle in an opening stand of 97 in fourteen overs, did not hit his first four until the sixth over, when he despatched Davies through cover.

The introduction of spin at both ends brought the wickets of both openers and, for a period, it seemed as if the Brown Caps might be restricted to less than 240. Newman's run a ball 58 contained twelve boundaries, but he was eventually caught behind off a reverse sweep. Benning departed in the next over, Dean Cosker's first, when he skied a catch to mid-on.

Between the end of the thirteenth over and the beginning of the twenty-forth Surrey added just thirty to the total, with Richard Clinton also going when he edged a turning ball on to his stumps. But when Robert Croft yielded to O'Shea at the Vauxhall End, Brown delivered the first of three telling blows off the 19-year-old off-spinner, when he hit him over extra cover. In O'Shea's next over Brown launched him over long-off.

Not to be outdone, Mark Ramprakash slog swept Cosker out of the ground in the 27th over, but moments later the stand-in Surrey captain was adjudged leg before. Six overs later Brown reached his fifty in 45 deliveries with two successive fours off the returning Wharf; though not before Schofield, promoted in the order, swept O'Shea for a maximum. A pulled six and a four through extra cover by Schofield off Croft in the next over made it forty runs in three.

The Brown Caps lost Brown and Jonathan Batty in successive overs, but with Schofield taking just 34 balls over an entertaining half-century and Harbhajan Singh punishing the last of Wharf's eight-over allocation, the home side looked very handily placed at the halfway stage.

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