Surrey v Hampshire LVCC Day 2 10th September at The Brit Oval
Hampshire take control
(ECB Match Report)
Hampshire’s Dimitri Mascarenhas and Nic Pothas made hay to increase Surrey’s relegation worries on day two of the LV County Championship Division One match at The Brit Oval.
Pothas made 137 not out in Hampshire’s first innings total of 480 for eight with Mascarenhas smashing 99 to ease the pain of his omission from the England squad for the Stanford Twenty20 Challenge in November.
Mascarenhas hit 18 fours off 114 balls as he batted his way out of his disappointment and forced Surrey captain Mark Ramprakash to rue his decision to put Hampshire in after winning the toss on the first morning.
Their partnership of 165 for the seventh wicket is a record for the fixture, eclipsing the pair’s mark of 129 made in 2005 and that of 145 made by Percy Fender and Tom Barling for Surrey in 1933.
But Mascarenhas missed out on a first hundred for more than two years – his last was in August 2006 against Kent - when he attempted to sweep Matthew Spriegel and was caught behind by Jon Batty, giving the wicketkeeper the 500th dismissal of his Surrey career.
But the liaison between Mascarenhas and Pothas virtually guarantees that Surrey will by playing second division cricket next season and exposed their ploy of signing Shoaib Akhtar as a desperate stop-gap measure.
Ramprakash only managed to get 11 overs out of Shoaib all day, and the Pakistan paceman barely threatened the Hampshire batting as he finished with figures of 1-54 off 19 overs.
Shoaib looked short of fitness and was reduced to bowling off a shortened run in his final spell.
It was left to Alex Tudor and Jade Dernbach to provide a semblance of firepower with Dernbach removing Chris Benham and Sean Ervine and Tudor producing a rapid bouncer that Liam Dawson top-edged to Shoaib, running in from the fine-leg boundary.
Tudor, in his second spell with Surrey after an injury-jinxed stint at Essex, bowled with a venom that put Shoaib’s limp efforts to shame and Spriegel picked up a second wicket when he had Chris Tremlett leg before for a duck.
Pothas remained unruffled as he moved to his second hundred of the season off 162 balls.
The visitors showed a lack of adventure when, with heavy showers forecast for the third day, they did not declare and have a crack at the Surrey batting before the close.
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