Surrey’s attempt at making it four championship titles in a row, after a losing draw against Essex, gathered steam as they rolled over Hampshire for 219 at the Oval.
Dan Worrall, their strike bowler, took three wickets for 37, which the champions converted into a lead of 170 before bad light.
Worrall, 33, might not secure a knighthood for his services to fast-medium bowling but he still has something in common with James Anderson, beginning with the same speed of 81-82 mph. Worrall’s stock ball is an outswinger, as was Anderson’s in the first half of his career before he made himself more of a seamer.
Using an angled run-up which allowed him to deliver his outswingers from wide of the crease, Worrall drew Hampshire’s batsmen into playing at balls they could have left, and he had a sharp enough bouncer to have Tom Prest fending to short-ish as opposed to short-leg.
A brilliant reaction catch from Ryan Patel at short leg! 😮💨
— Surrey Cricket (@surreycricket) April 12, 2025
Dan Worrall has his third and it is the big wicket of Tom Prest 💥
Hampshire are eight down and behind by 77 runs.
WATCH LIVE 📲 https://t.co/v9RxZ3Qb1a
🤎 | #SurreyCricketpic.twitter.com/Ez8rl8dO1m
For a Test in England, Worrall would not be far from a like-for-like replacement for Anderson. His outstanding first-class record for Surrey last season was 52 wickets at 16 each. But as he has represented Australia, if only in three one-day internationals, it would feel strange if he were selected for England, despite his UK passport – as strange as when Darren Pattinson was given a Test in 2008.
“If they want me to roll a few out, they know where I am,” Worrall has said, which suggests he has not set his heart on an England call-up. Meantime, he and the rest of Surrey’s enormous reserves of seam bowling will continue to roll opponents over at the Oval, given pitches which offer lateral movement, bounce and carry because sufficient grass is left on them.
Elsewhere in Division One of the County Championship, in more dry weather, it was also a good day for Yorkshire and Sussex. Worcestershire will have to repeat their heroic rearguard of last week at Taunton, where they batted out 200 overs in ...
