By Mark Baldwin at The Kia Oval
Result: Surrey 512 beat Yorkshire 255 & 229 by an innings and 28 runs
Surrey 22pts, Yorkshire 3
OCCASIONAL seamer Ryan Patel bowled Jonny Bairstow for 77 to claim his first wicket of the season as Surrey quickly completed a crushing Rothesay County Championship victory by an innings and 28 runs after dismissing Yorkshire for 229 at the Kia Oval on Monday.
Patel, a 27-year-old batsman in his 68th first-class appearance but with just 22 previous wickets to his name, was in his fourth and final over before Surrey took the second new ball when he deceived Bairstow with a nip-backer that defeated an attempted drive and removed off stump.
With Bairstow, who had resumed on 64, went all remaining hope for Yorkshire after they had begun day four on 185-6 in their second innings, still 72 runs adrift. It was a great moment for the popular Patel, who leapt in celebration and was mobbed by his team-mates.
Matthew Revis had already departed by then, for thirteen, lbw to Tom Lawes, and soon Yorkshire were 222-9 when Ben Coad (two) played on to Jordan Clark’s sixth delivery with the second new ball.
The end came 45 minutes before lunch when Jordan Thompson, having smeared Lawes over cover point for six, holed out to deep-mid on for sixteen aiming another big hit against Clark, who finished with 4-45. Lawes took 3-47.
For Surrey, it extends a remarkable recent record at their Oval fortress. The win, their second of the campaign, propels them into second place in the Division One table behind early pace-setters Nottinghamshire and is the eighteenth victory from the 24 championship matches they have played at their headquarters since the start of the 2022 season. In that time, too, they have lost at home just once.
With four draws in their other early-season matches – three of them in away fixtures played on ultra-flat pitches at Chelmsford, Hove and Edgbaston – Surrey may have made an unbeaten start to their quest for four successive titles, following the triumphs of 2022, 2023 and 2024, but there have also been whispers that the champions may have lost a little bit of edge.
The way Yorkshire were brushed aside, with Surrey running up 512 in their own first innings after dismissing their visitors for 255 on day one, certainly refutes that – particularly as Dan Worrall, the leader of their potent pace attack, missed this game with a heel injury while Dan Lawrence, who took 2-22 with his off spin on day one, was unable to bowl or field in Yorkshire’s second innings after hurting his back while batting.
Lawes made the initial breakthrough in the twelfth over of the morning session, one ball after seeing Revis edge one that curved away from him just short of third slip.
Thompson nicked the first ball he faced, from Patel, but Jason Roy at slip could only scoop it up on the half-volley as he reached forward.
“We are all very happy indeed in our dressing room,” Roy said. “Last week’s draw on a really flat pitch against Warwickshire at Edgbaston meant putting in a lot of effort up there. After that we wanted to put in a performance here to get an important win, so it was very nice to be able to do that.
“To a man everyone in the team has performed and contributed. The four main guys with the ball ran in hard and were again relentless with the ball. The rest of us needed to back them up in the field and I think we did that too.
“But we were also relentless with the bat. Everyone in the batting order also contributed [in our 512] and Kurtis Patterson, with 85 in his first innings for the club, played so fluently in conditions where there was always a bit in it for the seamers and he set things up really well for those coming in after him.
“Look also at the runs we scored below our top six. As a batting group, that was a top performance and a great effort and to finish things off pretty quickly today gives us all a little bit more time to rest up and prepare for another big game, against Essex, here at the Oval later this week.”
That game against Surrey starts on Friday (May 23) at 11am.
