Batty stalls Worcestershire

Jon Batty

Worcestershire are in with a fighting chance of winning their first LV County Championship Division One match of the season despite a battling 114 from Surrey’s Jon Batty at New Road.

His valiant century, however, failed to prevent the visitors from following on 331 behind, and by the close they were 59 for one, Batty having fallen for 13.

After Surrey resumed their first innings on 144 for one in reply to Worcestershire’s mammoth 701 for six declared, the home bowlers were rewarded for their unstinting efforts as on-loan Kyle Hogg and Gareth Batty claimed three wickets each.

Paceman Hogg’s 3-44 represented his best return since his championship debut season for Lancashire in 2002 and was a key factor in Surrey being dismissed for 370.

It was spinner Batty, however, who sparked Surrey's decline by removing his namesake with the last ball before lunch.

The opener had resumed on 66 and went on to complete his third championship century of the season before he was caught behind pushing forward.

His innings, though not as impressive as the centuries by Worcestershire’s Vikram Solanki, Stephen Moore and Phil Jaques, contained spanned 215 balls and contained 21 fours.

Batty had put on 165 in 51 overs with Mark Ramprakash, who lifted his overnight score of 25 to 70 by lunch, when he looked a good bet to register his sixth championship century of the campaign.

His hopes, however, disintegrated when he produced an undistinguished cut off paceman Nadeem Malik and was caught by Davies for 84.

It was a major boost for the home attack, who stepped up their healthy progress by rapidly removing Ali Brown and Rikki Clarke in successive overs.

Brown edged to Jaques at first slip off Malik and Clarke got into a mess with an attempted reverse sweep off Batty to top-edge an easy catch to Davies.

Azhar Mahmood was trapped lbw by paceman Kabir Ali before Mark Butcher, needing a runner because of Achilles tendon trouble, was joined by Chris Schofield in a bid to keep eager Worcestershire at bay.

Their resistance lasted just nine overs before Schofield nicked behind to give Hogg his first championship wicket since making a four-week loan move from Lancashire.

The 23-year-old’s second scalp followed shortly afterwards when he tempted Butcher to clip the ball to Malik at mid-on, and he followed that up by comprehensively bowling Ian Salisbury.

His stunning spell yielded figures of 7-3-17-3, with Batty removing Matthew Nicholson to end with 3-100 haul from 34.2 overs and Batty edging Malik to Davies as Surrey followed on.