Key events
Play to start at 6pm – 11.2 overs remaining
Blessed are the patient, for they shall see 11.2 overs at the end of the day.
The flags are limp on the top of the pavilion. Whatever it is over the ground, isn’t moving anywhere.
The groundsmen are standing by the covers, looking at the covers. The sky is grey. The floodlights are on. It looks terminal. But they have not yet pulled the plug.
Robin Smith Memorial Service
Hampshire are holding a memorial service to celebrate the life of Robin Smith at Winchester Cathedral, at 2pm on Friday. To register an interest in attending click here, and anyone can watch a live-stream via the Hampshire website.
It is, I’m afraid, raining again.
Restart at 4.10
Apologies, there was more rain when I wasn’t looking. I can still see probably 100 loyal fans in the stands, sheltering above the upper tier.
The umpires are out again, and two of the four remaining squares of tarpaulin have been hauled off. A pigeon flies past. There is beautiful sunshine in Manchester.
Restart 3.50
Weather permitting, and they’re taking tea now.
The umpires have inspected
and the covers are coming off. No news yet on a start time.
To pass the time, how about an England B side to take on the victors of Lord’s. I’ll throw one into the hat.
England B: Sibley, Abell, Rew J, Lawrence, Pope, Kellaway, Brown (wk), J Carson, S Curran, S Cook, Anderson.
England Women World Cup warm-up game
It isn’t raining at Cardiff, where Australia have won the toss against England in their T20 World Cup warm-up game. England have been sent in and are 4-0 after one over. Nat Sciver-Brunt is back, playing and captaining.
Cover watch
The covers have now been laid in a cross shape, almost boundary to boundary horizontally. Even the schoolchildren’s enthusiasm has dipped, though you can still pick up the odd squeal from behind the stands. Lee Fortis picks up a huge light blue hose from the boundary edge and hauls it to the middle, as a giant might pull at the beanstalk, up and into the clouds.
Rain stops play – Hampshire 78-2 (Lehmann 14, Gubbins 29)
And now those clouds start to empty, as the players flee the field. On come the covers and the hoses and the buckets. Hampshire added 61 in that hour or so of play, for the loss of two wickets.
After an hour, Hampshire haven’t collapsed in a heap, which is something. Gubbins and Lehmann have decided that just sitting put isn’t going to work. Meanwhile dark clouds are descending over the pavilion at quite a lick.
WICKET! Orr c T Curran b Fisher 3 (Hampshire 52-2)
Another for Fisher who is bordering on unplayable at times in these extremely helpful conditions. Ali Orr, desperate for ball on bat, squarks to midwicket.
“I don’t know how we lost it”
Liam Livingstone, whose 81 and three wickets were not enough to carry Lancashire to victory in yesterday’s Blast match against Glamorgan – despite Glamorgan needing 41 off the last 11 balls.
“The game’s all about winning and if you don’t win it doesn’t really matter what you do. I’d rather have bowled two overs for 50 and got a duck to be honest.
“I don’t really know how we’ve lost it.
“We can’t make any excuses – we should be winning these games of cricket, that’s the simple fact. We’ve got to get better.
“It’s been nice to be playing cricket to be honest, to come back into a place that feels like home for me. India was a long time away, but a chance to make a few changes and make my game better than it was at the start of the year.”
“A cricket match has broken out,” says our Ben in block 23 . “Spots of rain started as soon as the bell was rung but it’s fully stopped now. There’s a line of kids front row of the JM Finn stand opposite us trying to start a Mexican Wave but not getting much joy. Kids still having a time here, when there’s a boundary it sounds like a Beatles concert.”
An unplayable ball from Fisher hoops and rips, flying past Ollie Pope for four byes.
Matt Fisher is being mobbed by autograph hunters as he fields on the rope, kids hanging out their pieces of paper like baby birds eager for a worm. “Surrey, Surrey,” shout the now avid Ovalteenies.
WICKET! Albert b Fisher 16 (Hampshire 30-1)
Nick Gubbins tucks into a ball on leg stump from Matt Fisher and sends it skidding to the rope. He may never have hit a better received four, but even better received is the wicket of Albert, done by a beaut of a ball that pitches middle and pings out off.
Sibley, Burns and Jacks tug on their cable-knit jumpers at slip. It’s dark and dreary out there. Albert plays and misses at Tom Curran with military moustache
A round of the ground reveals kids having tons of fun playing plastic bat cricket, queues for selfies with Caesar the mascot and Sam Curran bowling in a cap. And now they’re back on the field, four cold slips to Tom Curran.
Play to start at 1.45pm
Huge squeals for the warm-ups, even huger squeals when the Hampshire players do the universal six-seven sign to the kids.
Lee Fortis stands on the covers and barks at his merry men. They seemed to have stopped taking the covers off for now, and have just rearranged them.
Baz on baggage
Also, a thoughtful few words on Emilio Gay.
“We are in block 27– I think we may have identified the stoical Ben,” writes Shreena Kotecha
“Part of a group of school children – representing the wonderful Sunnyhill primary supporting Surrey today! The rain isn’t bringing us down. Maybe give a shout-out to Jovan in class 4RH!”
Hey Jovan! Thanks for coming and to all in class 4RH at Sunnyhill primary. Hope you get to see some cricket.
An email drops from the very stoical Ben in block 23 (waves from the comfort of the press box). “Covers starting to come off. Lunch has been moved to half twelve, hopefully that means they expect most of an afternoon’s play. The racket from the schoolkids is something to behold but at least it’s not a dreary atmosphere.”
Lunch at 12.30 at The Oval
But, they are are peeling off the sheets…
“A pretty good day at the office”
Dan Lawrence spoke to the reporter’s network last night after his wham-bam double century.
“That was a pretty good day at the office!
“I’m chuffed with the position we’re in and of course to get the 200 – and my [Surrey] county cap as well.
“For the first couple of hours it felt like it was a pitch on which there might be a ball with your name on it but this morning we just tried to take the game on as far as possible and see how conditions turned out later.
“When I first went out there, in the conditions we had earlier, I certainly wasn’t expecting to be scoring a double hundred!
“It was really just a case of trying to put the pressure back on Hampshire’s bowlers.
“A double hundred is something I’ve always wanted to achieve in first-class cricket, but when I looked at the wicket this morning I didn’t think it would be something that would happen today!
“I’ve felt in really good order this season so far and today I just tried to be as positive as possible once I got in.”
Still raining, but now to a chorus of thousands of schoolchildren squashed into the stands. Oscar from the Cricketer tells me that last year’s schools’ day coincided with Dom Sibley’s triple century. Out of the frying pan…
Hello Gary Naylor. “Whenever I’m on the 77 back to Tooting and I see The British Interplanetary Society building, I smile a little at the thought of this, prompting bittersweet memories of the sublime Karen Carpenter and of how very strange the 70s were.”
Another in the occasional series of things I’ve seen from the train – the British Interplanetary Society building near Vauxhall and a plaque to Oscar Wilde at Clapham Junction. Any experts on these things, do write in.
Five and a half thousand children have just arrived at The Oval for schools’ day – activities and rain watching.
Simon expertly wraps things up.
More cracking writing from Andy Bull.
Osman Samiuddin is a wonderful writer and this long read/podcast on Imran Khan is unputdownable/switchoffable.
Yesterday’s report
On a spearmint green pitch at the Oval, Dan Lawrence had one of his unstoppable days – an unorthodox tub-thumping of Hampshire. With fierce eye and rampaging bat he bashed 218 off 190 balls, and became the first player to hit four Division One centuries this season, with his highest first-class score.
The Oval had been the site of Lawrence’s maiden first-class hundred, for Essex in April 2015, when he was only 17. Eleven years later, it was the venue for his first double century, reached with a peerless inside-out drive over extra cover. All around the ground spectators rose, as they had when he passed 100 and 150, and would again when he was finally dismissed with Surrey eight down, heaving for one final six off Sonny Baker.
Lawrence was also awarded his county cap, not given away lightly here, from the director of cricket, Alec Stewart, at tea, with 2,150 runs for Surrey in the bank.
This one-off Championship match, sitting alone in the schedule because of fixture congestion, was always a bit of an anomaly. But Surrey’s marketing team, with a keen eye for good publicity, invited day-four spectators at Lord’s, whose cricket had been curtailed, to cross the Thames for only a fiver on production of their ticket – and 250 did, joining a crowd of 4,700.
Surrey were sporting a new‑look side, shorn of their England players and with a string of injuries including Ben Foakes, still out of action after bowling at the fag end of the draw against Essex in April. Bottom-of-the-table Hampshire were boosted by the return of Baker from Lord’s.
The morning session had been steady, earnest even, with Hampshire winkling out Rory Burns and Will Jacks cheaply, and when Dom Sibley followed soon after lunch, the decision to bowl looked a good one. But then Lawrence and Ollie Pope (76) stepped on the accelerator, in a partnership of 255 in 37 overs.
To rub salt in the wound, Surrey were awarded five penalty runs when a cheesed-off Delano Potgieter, who had just been crunched for two fours by Lawrence, fielded off his own bowling and flung the ball back, throwing down the stumps.
Hampshire came back well with the new ball in the evening as Surrey lost six for 31 but the damage was done. Nick Gubbins and Toby Albert survived 5.2 overs before bad light stopped play, but the day belonged to Lawrence.
Preamble
Good damp morning to you all. The weather is wet and then wetter this morning, though might cheer up this afternoon. Still, plenty of time to chew over all matters cricket BTL and wonder if Dan Lawrence, whose double century lit up The Oval yesterday, might ever win his England place back. Do join us between the spreadsheets.