Guildford’s intimate Woodbridge Road ground saw a compelling first day’s cricket in the 250th first-class meeting between these two great sides yesterday. It began with Middlesex in the ascendancy, after the visitors had won the toss and accounted for Surrey’s opening pair inside seven overs, but ended with an on driven six from Jimmy Ormond that underlined the extent to which the pendulum had swung back the way of the home side by the close.

The main filling in the sandwich was a refreshing 85 in 110 deliveries from home town boy Rikki Clarke, who was playing his first championship innings since the middle of May. Clarke, who plays his club cricket for Guildford, shared in two crucial partnerships, the first with Alex Tudor – worth 79 in 61 minutes – and either side of tea with Ian Salisbury (40 off 48 balls), which contributed a further 51 in twelve overs for Surrey’s eighth wicket.

Mark Ramprakash and Graham Thorpe’s 93-run third-wicket alliance would have had more significance had a brief collapse not then ensued, but in conditions that were very much in the seamers’ favour early on the former England pair succeeded in giving the tail every chance to wag later in the day, which it did with aplomb.

Following the departures of Jonathan Batty, bowled off stump by Chad Keegan, and Surrey’s acting skipper, Ian Ward, who was out to a thick inside edge off Ashley Noffke, Ramprakash and Thorpe weathered the atmospheric conditions to guide their side to 95 for two at lunch.

Just before the break the former Middlesex man was missed at second slip on 17, but the compact left-hander played some beautiful strokes down the ground and through the covers off Keegan and went to his half-century in 76 deliveries with a pulled six off the same bowler.

Around the same time Simon Cook was enjoying a spell of three for five in 17 balls from the other end. Mark Ramprakash nicked one that lifted and left him, a questioning Graham Thorpe edged the 26-year-old low to second slip and Alistair Brown miscued a drive, which was well taken by Andrew Strauss running back from mid-off.

That left Surrey in a spot of bother at 131 for five, but Clarke and Tudor took no time in deciding that the best form of defence was to forge ahead. 42 came off the first 29 balls of their sixth-wicket partnership, including ten fours, and when Alex Tudor eventually got a leading edge to cover point in the 53rd over, 79 had come off 101.

Not even minor scares on 44, when a thin edge off Paul Weekes raced to the boundary, and 82 could detract from Rikki Clarke’s exquisite display of batsmanship. With fierce cuts and languid extra cover drives he reached his fifty in 58 deliveries, and when the 21-year-old was bowled by Noffke, who got one to nip back sharply in the 71st over, the colour really had returned to Surrey’s cheeks.

To add to Middlesex’s problems, Ormond and Saqlain Mushtaq were still there at the close. Jimmy Ormond, who struck three successive boundaries off Chad Keegan, ended the day by dropping Weekes into one of the marquees at the Railway End of the ground to take the last-wicket partnership past the 50-mark.

Handicapped by the loss of Abdul Razzaq to an ankle injury, the Middlesex seamers all bowled admirably to share equally in what spoils there were on offer, but Paul Weekes looked ineffective, particularly when being swept fine by Clarke.

The visitors now have a job on their hands. If the rain, which is forecast for tomorrow, holds off it is hard to see them preventing Surrey going to their ninth consecutive victory at Guildford, which is guaranteed a championship fixture for the next ten years under a staging agreement announced yesterday.

GO TO:

BACK TO: