It was a very long couple of days to be a Durham bowler at the Oval, as Surrey piled on a scarcely-believable 820-9 in their first innings effort in their County Championship contest in London this weekend. The total stands as the club’s highest-ever total in first-class cricket, and the fourth-highest of any team in the long and famous history of the competition.
Surrey simply kept batting, but scored at a quick rate as they ate up 161 overs enroute to their total before declaration. Their score included four different centurions, but it was former England opener Dom Sibley who was the star of the show. Opening the batting, Sibley just batted on and on through the innings, piling on 305 runs with a massive triple-century.
Surrey broke their previous record of 811 runs in an innings, which was set all the way back in 1899, 126 years ago. Alongside Sibley starred Dan Lawrence (178) and Will Jacks (119), both scoring at more than run a ball as the team took the attack to the Durham bowling. Sam Curran was the fourth centurion in the innings.
Record of the unwanted kind for Durham spinner
This round of County games is being played with the Kookaburra ball rather than the traditional Dukes, a recent change made by ECB director Rob Key to get an idea of which players might be well-suited for tours of Australia. The Durham bowlers won’t be writing to Key with notes of gratitude any time soon: the conditions at London in the middle of a hot summer and the Kookaburra made for a thankless task throughout.
Off-spinner George Drissell did the brunt of the bowling and received the brunt of the damage, delivering a whopping 45 overs and conceding figures of 1-247. No bowler has conceded more runs in an innings of the County Championship.
He was only one of four bowlers to bowl at least 25 overs: fast bowler Matthew Potts bowled 25 overs and took no wickets, but Danil Hogg and Will Rhodes had more success in their extended spells, taking two and three wickets respectively.
In response, Durham played out 28 overs but found it slow, turgid going, only reaching 59/1 at stumps on day two. A long, long way to go.
This match wasn’t the only one in the ongoing round with some inflated first innings scores, with Jake Libby and Adam Hose’s twin double-centuries for Worcestershire seeing them to 679/7d against Hampshire in Southampton, including a 395-run partnership between the pair.
