RAMPRAKASH AND BICKNELL DIG SURREY OUT OF TROUBLE by Marcus Hook
Sussex 429 v Surrey 212-6.

Championship cricket rarely gets any more competitive than the battle currently being fought out between Surrey and Sussex down at Hove. The visitors, whose lead at the top of the first division table now stands at two points, need another 68 this morning to avoid the indignity of being asked to follow-on by Chris Adams.

Starting with the Sussex captain’s downfall, wickets fell at regular intervals throughout yesterday until Martin Bicknell and Mark Ramprakash came together in an unbroken stand of 86 in 28 overs.

It would appear that the hopes of the defending champions rest heavily on the seventh-wicket pair. Ramprakash is a class act, but he has never made a hundred at the Eaton Road ground. The former England batsman is well on his way, though, after overcoming a painful blow on the foot and stubbornly grinding out a 130-ball half-century.

The most likely obstacle will be Mushtaq Ahmed, who contributed to the Sussex cause with bat and ball yesterday. The Pakistani leg-spinner bowled unchanged for 26 overs, claiming the wickets of Adam Hollioake and Azhar Mahmood - both lbw – to reduce the visitors to 126 for 6 on what appeared to be a reliable surface.

That came after Ian Ward – dropped at gully on 16 – had been leg before to James Kirtley and Jonathan Batty, pulling, had been magnificently caught behind by Tim Ambrose off the bowling of Paul Hutchison when the visitors’ reply had reached just 32.

Then, when it seemed as though Ramprakash and Thorpe were getting Surrey back on track, Graham Thorpe chipped Robin Martin-Jenkins low to square leg. Rikki Clarke pulled the same bowler to deep backward square to leave the Oval outfit, at 89 for four, facing an uphill task to avoid the follow-on.

At the close Mark Ramprakash had taken his personal total to 74 in 154 deliveries and struck a dozen boundaries. The former Middlesex man survived just one half-chance – a cover-drive off Mushtaq, which just managed to elude Matthew Prior.

Sussex gathered only 67 runs for their last six first-innings wickets, starting with Jimmy Ormond’s three victims in 13 balls without conceding a run from the Cromwell Road end.

Chris Adams went to the second delivery of the day without adding to his overnight score of 107, gloving the ball down the leg side, before Matthew Prior and Mark Davis gave slip catches to Thorpe and Clarke respectively.

Mushtaq Ahmed kept Robin Martin-Jenkins company with a pugnacious 26 in 27 deliveries, which included an impudent six over square leg off Bicknell. Martin-Jenkins took his side to maximum batting points by pulling Ormond for four, but both batsmen went either side of an early lunch, which limited the number of overs lost to rain to fourteen.

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