Essex Eagles v Surrey Lions
Yorkshire Bank 40
Monday 3 June 2013
The Cloudfm County Ground, Chelmsford
This latest Essex Archives match is supported by Woodland Group.
Essex Team: Tom Westley, Hamish Rutherford, Mark Pettini, Ravi Bopara, Owais Shah, Ryan ten Doeschate, James Foster (c & wk), Graham Napier, Tim Phillips, David Masters, Reece Topley
Surrey Team: Steven Davies (wk), Jason Roy, Vikram Solanki (c), Ricky Ponting, Gary Wilson, Azhar Mahmood, Zander de Bruyn, Tom Jewell, Jon Lewis, Stuart Meaker, Gary Keedy
Toss: Surrey Lions won the toss and elected to bowl
Umpires: Mark Benson, Steve Garratt & Paul Pollard
Result: Essex Eagles won by 178 runs
Match Reaction: Graham Napier reflects on his remarkable Player of the Match performance with the ball
Match Highlights:
Match Report:
Essex 312-7 (40 overs)
Surrey 134 all out (29.4 overs)
Graham Napier bowled Essex to a second success in 24 hours as they followed up the comprehensive victory over Scotland with the demolition of Surrey, who were dismissed for just 134 in pursuit of their opponents’ commanding 312 for 7.
Napier was in sensational form with the ball, at times as he returned figures of 7 for 32 that included four wickets in four balls having earlier dismissed international star Ricky Ponting.
Needing to launch their reply with tempo and substance, the Surrey innings floundered with the loss of their first four wickets in 13 overs for 49 runs including Jason Roy and Ponting who became the first of Napier’s septet of victims.
Australian Test captain Ponting had scored just 2 runs when he was beaten outside his off stump by Napier but there was no such good fortune for the batsman when he pushed forward to the bowler’s next delivery and lost his middle stump, leaving Napier jubilantly celebrating his prized scalp.
The 33-year-old Essex all-rounder was virtually unplayable as he continued his demolition job by bowling Azhar Mahmood and Jon Lewis and trapping Zander de Bruyn and Tom Jewell in the crease with full-pitched deliveries.
That left the Surrey innings in tatters at 113 for eight.
Napier then found the edge to have Stuart Meaker caught in his next over to finish with the remarkable figures of 8-2-32-7, the second best limited-overs haul by an Essex bowler.
Owais Shah and Ravi Bopara had led the scoring for the home side, with Shah playing a superb innings of 68 from 53 balls including three sixes and four other boundaries.
Bopara scored 54 from 58 balls, with five boundaries including a six in an innings containing wristy stroke play and trademark drives on either side of the wicket until he was caught at deep mid-wicket.
Shah and Bopara posted 55 in nine overs for the fourth wicket to initiate the rapid acceleration of the innings.
England all-rounder Bopara was a surprise inclusion for the home side having been given permission to play by the ECB ahead of the Champions Trophy which starts later in the week and he responded.
His demise allowed Shah to take over and the former England batsman combined elegant and conventional stroke play with aggressive punishing shots as he dominated the visitors’ bowling.
He set the tone for his side who added 191 runs from the final 20 overs, with Shah at the crease for 15 of those.
There were briskly struck contributions at the top of the order from Tom Westley and Mark Pettini, who scored 34 and 43 respectively, before James Foster added 39 from 18 deliveries at the conclusion of the innings.
Speaking after the match, Essex hero of the hour Napier said:
“To have a hat-trick, Ricky Ponting, seven wickets, career-best figures all in one go, I am ecstatic about it all.
“Four in four is a first for me in any form of cricket.
“The ball had been roughed up on the wicket, it was a very dry wicket and it enabled it to reverse swing at that stage in the game.
“I was only ever doing one thing, going full and straight, and that’s what I do.
“He [Ponting] is one I have dreamed about for a very long time. Just to get the chance to bowl to him was great and to knock his middle stump out of the ground, you can’t ask for much more.”
