Lancashire 233 for 8 (Jennings 76, Abbott 4-42) path Surrey 442 (Metal 141*, Foakes 76, Smith 54; Bailey 4-86) by 209 runs
On condition that on Thursday morning no county within the land had gained any factors in any respect, it appeared each true and barmy for a number of pundits to explain this as a top-of-the-table match. The expectation mendacity behind such a press release, after all, was that each Lancashire and Surrey will likely be amongst these combating it out in September when each level’s significance is clearer and the title is within the hazard.
However the significance hooked up to this primary sport of the season explains why Lancashire’s regular, after which headlong, subsidence this afternoon and night mattered a lot. The house aspect’s decline from 43 with out loss to 197 for eight won’t result in a Surrey victory. (Can Keaton Jennings’ top-order donate their wickets so carelessly a second time?) However it has allowed Surrey to achieve a strong psychological benefit over the house aspect, even when such a bonus has modest expression in factors. To date, a minimum of…
So nearly all of at the moment’s cricket can have happy the Peter Might Boys, whose loyal assist is only vocal at Surrey’s away video games; sadly, they don’t cheer on their crew from a nice encampment corresponding to they’ve established at The Oval. Nonetheless, there’s a lot constructing work happening on the bottom in the intervening time that the addition of a gazebo or two should not trigger a lot of a fuss and certainly one thing ought to be performed to mark Sean Abbott’s day.
That mentioned, Lancashire’s issues have been fairly often their very own rattling foolish fault. Dealing with a seam-dominated assault that requested probing questions, they supplied insufficient solutions and nobody was guiltier than the specialist batsmen. For instance, within the fourth over after lunch, Luke Wells drove at a wideish ball from Abbott at edged a catch to Ollie Pope, who pouched a diving two-handed catch to his left with an athletic lack of fuss. An hour later, Josh Bohannon, having performed with spectacular composure for his 32 runs, slapped a full-length leg-spinner from Cam Metal straight to Abbott at shortish extra-cover. Steven Croft, so typically the supply of Lancashire’s commonsense recoveries made 11 earlier than hooking Abbott…
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