BICKNELL AND GALLIAN SHOW THE APPLICATION LACKED BY SURREY by Marcus Hook
Surrey 217 v Nottinghamshire 204-2.

If Surrey experience more days like this one in the County Championship, their coach Steve Rixon might conclude it is better for him to stay in Australia. On the same day as Rixon’s charges were dismissed for their lowest first innings total at the Oval for three years, Darren Bicknell and Jason Gallian put the visitors firmly in the driving seat by setting a new record for Nottinghamshire’s opening stand against their metropolitan rivals.

After winning the toss and, unsurprisingly, electing to bat there was no hint of the problems that lay in store for the home side as Newman and Batty put on 58 for their own first wicket. But in what seemed no time the Oval outfit found themselves 70 for three and, not long after, 114 for six.

In the fifteenth over Jonathan Batty, having just clipped Paul Franks to the long leg boundary, tried to repeat the stroke and was snapped up at short square leg to give Gallian his 100th catch on the occasion of his 100th f-c appearance.

Mark Ramprakash perished two overs later when, after being served up two wides and a no-ball, the former Middlesex man got one from Franks that was more or less on target and was caught down the leg-side.

With the influential Ramprakash gone for nought a period of consolidation was called for. Scott Newman had been in superb touch after taking 17 balls to get off the mark with a full-blooded cut, but his mis-controlled hook stroke simply handed Mark Ealham a bonus scalp.

Alistair Brown was leg before shouldering arms to the first ball of Ryan Sidebottom’s second spell and, five overs later, a below par Graham Thorpe angled Ealham to second slip. A brilliant catch by David Hussey accounted for Rikki Clarke in the 30th over – just when the young all-rounder was beginning finding his feet as well.

That brought together James Benning and Martin Bicknell and due to the former’s liking of Graeme Swann’s twirlers, the former Northants all-rounder went for 27 runs in his first two overs as Surrey’s seventh-wicket pair added 76 runs in eleven.

Benning hit Swann over mid-off and through mid-wicket before straight driving the 26-year-old spinner for the day’s only maximum. In Swann’s next over the 22-year-old helped himself to three leg-side boundaries prior to pulling Sidebottom for four in the 39th over to bring up his first championship fifty, in just 32 deliveries.

Two overs later, however, Benning was heading back to the dressing room after being adjudged leg before attempting to hit across the line. Ormond was needlessly run out when Bicknell ran three following the former Leicestershire man’s dab to third man but Ormond was satisfied with just two.

Martin Bicknell, the most secure-looking of all of Surrey’s batsmen, then lost Nayan Doshi, who was caught behind off Ealham, before he himself fell in the same manner, except to Swann, three overs later.

In reply, Nottinghamshire’s openers had already knocked off 78 runs by tea. Bicknell’s older brother Darren brought up the hundred stand and his own half-century in 83 deliveries with an effortless flick through mid-wicket off Bicknell.M for four.

Three overs later the 37-year-old went past 5,000 first-class runs for Nottinghamshire when he moved to 63 with a straight driven boundary off Doshi. In-between the left-hander’s milestones came Jason Gallian’s fifty, which took 82 balls.

With Surrey’s attack failing to get any lateral movement, both the umpires and the players had a number of searching looks at the offending missile.

But just as Bicknell’s second hundred against his former employers came into view, Clarke followed up the long hop of all long hops with a truly unplayable yorker. Bicknell had made 91 off 148 balls, in 161 minutes, and struck 14 fours. His partnership of 178 with Gallian eclipsed the 159-run alliances between Reg Simpson and John Clay at the Oval in 1953 and Paul Pollard and Mark Crawley on the same ground in 1992.

Anurag Singh, who made a pair in his only previous appearance against Surrey, was yorked first ball by Ormond, but Gallian was still there at the end with an unbeaten 83. The bad news for the hom side is that Jason Gallian knows what is like to make a century against them – he has done it three times before. Worse still, David Hussey is yet to face a ball on what appears to be a pitch tailor-made for batting.

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