Lancashire’s Tom Bailey and Will Williams took just 45 minutes to complete their team’s 123-run triumph against Surrey on day four at the Kia Oval – the county champions’ first defeat at their home ground in first-class cricket in 19 matches, going back to August 2020.
Williams picked up 4 for 13 in just 4.3 overs on the final morning as Surrey were routed for 84, giving him overall figures of 4 for 23 while Bailey finished with 5 for 48.
The two pacemen took only 9.3 overs to snatch Surrey’s last five second innings wickets to end a run of 18 first-class games at the Oval in which the current LV= Insurance County Championship Division One leaders have won 12 and drawn the other six.
Bailey, whose heroic 11-over new ball spell of four for 34 on the third evening had helped to reduce Surrey to 57 for five overnight – still 151 runs away from their 208 fourth innings target – made the initial breakthrough in his second over of the morning, having nightwatchman Tom Lawes caught behind for 10.
And then Williams got into the act, bowling Will Jacks for 20 in the next over as the Surrey all-rounder shouldered arms to one that jagged back into him off the seam.
Batting was not straightforward against a ball still less than 30 overs old and in overcast conditions, with the Oval floodlights on, and later in the same over Williams grabbed the wicket Lancashire wanted above all others on the final morning as Sam Curran was bowled off stump for 12 by another superb ball angled across him by the New Zealander and then nipping back.
Williams, however, was still not finished. In his third over of the day the 30-year-old – who made 61 in a four-hour stint as nightwatchman, a maiden first-class half-century, in Lancashire’s second innings 293 – had Sean Abbott taken by keeper Phil Salt for a duck.
Abbott had hit an unbeaten 87 in Surrey’s first innings of 360, adding a remarkable 130 for the tenth wicket with Dan Worrall, but now the Australian was gone to his third ball and at 75 for nine, having lost four wickets in 20 balls, Surrey could only hope for another final wicket miracle.
It did not come this time, with Worrall finishing six not out as Jordan Clark, aiming a big hit, skied Williams to mid off to go for four and spark Lancashire celebrations. This was Lancashire’s second win of the championship season, and they remain unbeaten; for title favourites Surrey, however, it is a sobering setback.
Report courtesy of ECB Reporters Network
