Hayden's reminder for Australian selectors
Surrey 477 Hampshire 200-5
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Your support makes all the difference.Matthew Hayden may have been ignored for the Ashes series, but it is a safe bet that the left-hander from Queensland will have smeared a lot of egg on the faces of the Australian selectors before the end of the season.
His pleasure at passing fifty yet again in the Championship with some muscular pulls and harsh cuts and powerful drives may have been tempered by the fact that when he was bowled by Martin Bicknell for a good-looking 58, he needed just 35 more runs to win the race to 1,000 first-class runs this season.
Never mind. He may well get the chance to do that today, because Hampshire's situation, with the bulk of their front-line batsmen out of it, is far from promising. They need a further 128 to avoid the follow-on but it could have been worse had bad light not brought a premature close to the proceedings. If Surrey whip them out smartly enough this morning that could see Hayden returning to the crease a trifle earlier than anticipated.
The Surrey bowlers will certainly not make scoring as easy as they their own batsmen found it. Hampshire did have a spot of bad luck, Matthew Keech tried to turn a ball off his hips only for his back foot to slip into the stumps.
With the Benson and Hedges Cup safely in their grasp, nothing further to worry about in the NatWest Trophy, Surrey are now in a position to concentrate more fully on the Championship. In addition to that they are eager to secure the services of manager David Gilbert for a further three years, if reports around Guildford are anything to go by.
Gilbert, a former Australian Test fast bowler, has achieved near miracles since his arrival in the winter of 1996. Surrey had won nothing in 14 years. Now in the space of 10 months they have lifted the Sunday League and the B&H Cup.
But hanging on to the 36-year-old may not be as easy as offering him an all-in package worth a reputed pounds 100,000 a year. Gilbert and his English- born wife Hilary are due to "talk turkey" as chairman Mike Soper puts it, this weekend. The discussions will take into account family needs, security and so on, with Gilbert promising a decision will follow shortly. He may well settle for a two-year deal at The Oval. .
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