Newman confirms promise with fine innings
Hampshire 190 Surrey 410-5
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Your support makes all the difference.An anxious telephone call to Lord's on Thursday alerting the authorities to the fact that the ball was turning "unduly" at The Oval brought Tony Brown, the Pitch Liaison Officer, rushing to south London.
But what he saw when he arrived in Kennington was Hampshire in a spin, as their ineffectual attack was taken apart in clinical fashion by the debutant Scott Newman, who shared a monumental stand of 198 with Ian Ward.
Newman is held in high regard by every aficionado at The Oval. He had scored 1,800 runs in all cricket for the Second XI – a total that included seven hundreds, two of them against a Hampshire side that included three members of the attack in this match.
The fact that Newman, 22, fell lbw not offering a stroke when he was on 99 was a passing disappointment, and the batsman, no doubt edgy on the brink of such a landmark in his debut first-class match, had only himself to blame.
He had dealt superbly with the previous 167 balls, but then decided on a change of tactic and suffered for his artlessness. Never mind. On this evidence there will be many centuries in this young man's career, and probably very few 99s. Although he certainly rode his luck, being dropped three times.
At the other end Ward was timing the ball immaculately and placing it perfectly. He was content to watch Newman's brutal, but beautiful, innings and pick off his own runs at leisure. But nine balls after Newman perished Ward prodded at a Shaun Udal off-spinner and was snapped up at slip.
Surrey then went through a panicky phase, with batsmen behaving as if they had a lot of runs to make and very little time in which to get them. Mark Ramprakash, Nadeem Shahid and Adam Hollioake all managed to establish themselves before holing out to some pretty poor shots.
As Surrey cleared the three hundred, Alistair Brown was joined at the crease by the wicketkeeper Jon Batty. This underrated batsman knuckled down to play solidly to help Surrey to maximum batting bonus points, while Brown savaged his way towards a fourth hundred of the season, his second in successive matches and the 31st of his career.
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