Gareth Batty: Time for Surrey CCC to step it up

BY MARCUS HOOK

Veteran off-spinner Gareth Batty says it’s time for Surrey to “get going” if they are to retain their County Championship crown.

Speaking after their 130-run defeat to Warwickshire at Edgbaston last week, the 41-year-old said that him taking a career-best 8-64 was secondary to the situation the Oval outfit now find themselves in, having won just one competitive game this season.

“We need to get going,” said Batty, who took 10 wickets in the match.

“This season hasn’t gone as we would have liked. There’s still a heck of a lot of cricket still to be played, so it’s not doom and gloom. But we certainly need to get off and running and start playing the cricket we want to play and know we can play.”

The catalyst for Surrey’s demise was Batty’s spin counterpart Jeetan Patel, who followed up figures of 4-53 in the first innings with a personal best 8-36 which helped polish off Surrey for 141 on the last day.

“Credit to Warwickshire. They got it right from the get-go,” said Batty.

“Their first innings lead was crucial and Jeetan Patel was brilliant all game. He led, as all captains should do, from the front and got all the rewards. He bowled quite magnificently.

“You don’t get to be an overseas player at a county for 10 years without being quality.

“Jeets deserves a heck of a lot of praise. At his age, with a bunch of young players, dragging them over the line like he did, he deserves all the credit.

“He was on the winning team and I was on the losing team, so what I did wasn’t good enough.

“But it showed that if you get on a pitch that helps spin…I certainly don’t think it was unplayable, if you look at the way Clarkey [Rikki Clarke] played at the end and the way Ben Foakes played, in the first innings, there were players in the game who made it look quite easy at times. It was just about having a method.

“It probably shows that because of some of the surfaces we play on, the method isn’t always there. But the guys who had a method played nicely.”

Batty added that the quickfire 64 made by Warwickshire’s number 10 Liam Norwell on the first day was a turning point.

“When you get on pitches that are slightly more turgid than free-flowing, which I think is good for the game every now and then, an 80 to 100 run split is massive on first innings,” he said. So, that innings was probably crucial when you look at the full four days.

“The fact that it went to the last session on day four proved it was a heck of a game of cricket. You don’t have to score 1,500 runs in a game for it to be a great game. It was tense all the way through. There was some good batting and bowling and there was some poor batting and bowling.

“I must admit I didn’t expect them to be quite free-scoring when they came out on day four.

“I expected a declaration in or around that amount, because the scoring rate was around two to two and a half [runs per over] throughout the game. So, I thought they would back themselves that we wouldn’t be able to score much faster than that.

“But they played pretty well and put us on to the back foot. They put themselves in a position to have an extra 10 or 15 overs at us that, in the end, they probably didn’t need.

“The way we were looking at it was let’s keep it pretty small, try and bat five overs, then try and bat 10 overs and, obviously, keep wickets in hand and take the game deep – as you would, I suppose, in a one-day game, to get ourselves into a position to at least have a go.

“We weren’t able to do that. We lost wickets throughout and, ultimately, Warwickshire out-played us.”

Surrey resumed County Championship action yesterday against Somerset at Guildford’s Woodbridge Road.

AN OVER OF STATS

Ball 1 – Gareth Batty’s hat-trick on Thursday was the first in first-class cricket for Surrey since…Gareth Batty, who also took three wickets in three balls to finish off Derbyshire at the Oval in 2015.

Ball 2 – The last fast bowler to take a hat-trick for Surrey was Jimmy Ormond in 2003, at Guildford (where Surrey are this week and next), against Middlesex.

Ball 3 – The remarkable thing about Ormond’s feat 16 years ago was that not only was his hat-trick part of four wickets in an over, but all four batsmen were left-handers.

Ball 4 – There were 15 lbws in last week’s Warwickshire v Surrey clash at Edgbaston. If that seems rather a lot, it would have been at one time. Before 1994, there were just eight instances of 15 or more lbws in a County Championship game. There are now 45 – five of them were in 2018.

Ball 5 – Last week’s was only the second occasion at Edgbaston. The other was virtually 30 years ago to the day (20-23 May 1989), when, by coincidence, Warwickshire played host to Surrey in a game that was decided by 4 runs.

Ball 6 – The three grounds that have produced the most 15+ lbw contests in the championship are: New Road, Worcester (7), Sophia Gardens, Cardiff (5) and Lord’s (4).

PICTURE BY KEITH GILLARD