Warwickshire recover to rescue draw against Surrey

A mouth-watering opening-round clash between two sides with serious title aspirations ended in stalemate with Surrey on 43 without loss in their second innings after Warwickshire piled up 531 in their first.

On a pitch offering the bowlers nothing, Bears wicketkeeper Michael Burgess hit a career-best 178 (221 balls, 20 fours, eight sixes) – his fourth first class century. He enjoyed resolute support from the tail, notably number 11 Olly Hannon-Dalby with whom he added 122 for the 10th wicket. Hannon-Dalby made an unbeaten 11 (89 balls) having got off the mark from his 67th ball faced.

Warwickshire took advantage of the advantageous batting conditions which, along with the loss of 47 overs in the match to rain and bad light, killed off any hopes of a positive result.

Warwickshire first-team captain Will Rhodes said: “It was a magnificent partnership between Burge and Olly.

“Huge credit goes to Olly for all the work he had put in on his batting in the winter, as have all the bowlers with their batting.

“Milo and Brookes batted really well too and it’s for exactly situations like that, to get bonus points and get the team safe and to help people to milestones. Fair play to those guys, they are in the team to bowl, but also to help guide us to some big totals when we need them to.

“Burge batted brilliantly for his career best. I’m really pleased for him. He works really hard on his game and is really getting his rewards.

“Overall, it was a solid start for us.

“There were plenty of positives but a few things for us to reflect on so it is good now for us to have a week without a game so we can work on those before we come back against a very good Essex team.”

The home side resumed on the final morning on 293 for seven and soon raised the third batting point in unusual fashion when Craig Miles headed a short ball from Jordan Clark over the slips for four.

Surrey’s bowlers persevered but the pitch showed no sign of deterioration and Burgess added 55 with Miles (32, 60 balls) and 54 with Henry Brookes (29, 65 balls). Miles and Brookes both perished to slick slip catches by Ollie Pope, off Reece Topley and Ryan Patel respectively, which set the scene for a bizarre passage of play in which Burgess and Hannon-Dalby stretched the innings by another 134 minutes.

When Hannon-Dalby went in, Burgess was on 69. Twenty overs later, the number 11 was still there and still to score when Burgess reached his ton.

It was one of those sessions totally inexplicable to anyone who is not familiar with cricket... and pretty inexplicable to many who are.

With the game long dead, batsmen turning down runs and weary bowlers plodding in, attention turned to numerical quirks which could not possibly affect the match result, like would the 50 partnership be raised with Burgess having scored all 50? (It was).

Surrey plugged away nobly, but Burgess plundered a weary attack until lifting Will Jacks to deep mid-wicket. The last two hours had been whimsical but Warwickshire’s 531 was a seriously good recovery from 41 for four.

The 48-minute, post-tea session in which Surrey began their second innings is unlikely to feature in any future publications which chronicle the glorious history of cricket.