Surrey beat Kent to go top of the championship

By Ben Horne
June 18 2002

Surrey beat Kent to go top of the county championship at the AMP oval. I88 from Ali Brown and 8 wickets in the match for Martin Bicknell helped Surrey to complete this victory

Surrey beat Kent by 9 wickets to return to the top of the county championship.

Surrey won the toss and decided to bowl and soon they had Kent in trouble as they reduced them to 48 for 5. Paul Nixon scored 54 and Mark Ealham scored 25 to help Kent to 153. The bowler of the innings for Surrey was Martin Bicknell who returned to form with 6 for 42. This gave Bicknell 5 wickets against every first class county.

Surrey started badly when they lost captain Ian Ward for 0 there bad start continued as they were reduced to 80 for 5. Then reliable Ali Brown continued his rich vain form by scoring a huge 188. Surrey were bowled out for 361 this gave surrey a lead of 208.

Kent started their second innings poorly when they lost Rob Key early on for 4. Then a partnership of 88 between David Fulton 48 and Ed Smith 44 gave Kent some hope. But after that no batsmen could get in and help Kent avoid defeat. There was some help for Kent when Min Patel scored 37 and Amjad Khan scored 42 but it was all to little to late for Kent as they were bowled out for 268. Bicknell Ormond and Mushtaq all picked up 2 wickets and Ed Giddins took 3.

This left Surrey needing just 61 for victory and they did this for the loss of 1 wicket, when Min Patel bowled Ian Ward for 15. John Batty 32 and Mark Ramprakash 11 were the two not out batsmen for Surrey.