Date-stamped : 10 Jun95 - 02:23 Surrey undone by Mushtaq BY GEOFFREY DEAN AT THE OVAL First day of four: Somerset (74-3) trail Surrey (221) by 147 runs UNUSUALLY for the Oval, 13 wickets fell in the first day. Admittedly, neither Surrey nor the Somerset top three batted well, but Mushtaq Ahmed was outstanding. For his wicket to wicket figures read 25-15-22-5 on a slow pitch on which only the odd ball turned significantly. Surrey`s total was particularly disappointing after they had stormed to 130 for one from 33 overs. Somerset`s bowling was awful in the first hour when runs flowed at five an over, and the only wicket taken - that of Mark Butcher - was from a court behind down the leg side. Jason Ratcliffe celebrated his first-class debut for Surrey with 70 from 126 balls, batting with a lot of confidence, although he was dropped when 33 and 50. He twice pulled Jason Kerr for four in his first over and cleared the deep backward square boundary with an effortless pick-up off his legs off Simon Ecclestone. Mushtaq`s introduction after 19 overs did not immediately stem the rush of runs for his first 43 balls cost 32. Ratcliffe kept sweeping him to the short 60-yard boundary on the gasholder side of the square, and danced down the pitch to hit him memorably for six over long on. Mushtaq, who had earlier shaved Ratcliffe`s off stump with a googly that was not spotted, frequently bowled the delivery and it caused Surrey problems all day. Neither Nadeem Shahid nor Martin Bicknell picked it, both being lbw, and David Ward was caught at short leg off bat and pad. Two good deliveries accounted for Ratcliffe and Adam Hollioake. Both were lbw after being hit fill pitch on the boot - Ratcliffe to Mushtaq`s top spinner and Hollioake to Graham Rose`s slower ball. What was galling for Surrey was Ally Brown`s run-out and Andy Smith`s shot across the line to be lbw to a middle and leg half- volley. Brown thought his edge off Mushtaq had gone past Harvey Trump at slip but it had not, and he was run out by a superb piece of fielding. Somerset lost both openers in the first four overs, Marcus Trescothick falling to a superb low catch at third slip, and then Peter Bowler was caught at the wicket trying to leg-glance. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http:://ww.telegraph.co.uk) Day 2=> Bicknell finds spark Second day of four: Surrey (221 & 70-0) lead Somerset (260) by 21 runs MARTIN BICKNELL brought Surrey back into the game with a superb fifth spell, taking his first five-wicket haul at the Oval since 1992. His last four wickets came in nine balls, and he would have had a fifth victim inside three overs if Harvey Trump had not been dropped before scoring at 214 for nine, writes Geoffrey Dean. It was one of two costly misses for Surrey. Simon Ecclestone was put down first ball, also in the slips, off Andy Smith. He went on to play some thumpingly powerful drives in his 41 before being bowled off an inside edge by Bicknell. Richard Harden`s admirable 90 in just over four hours took his tally for his last three innings to 299 for once out. His cover driving was a feature, but he threw away the chance of a fourth championship hundred of the season when he pushed at an out-swinger from Bicknell and edged to Alistair Brown at second slip. Australian Carl Rackemann, in his first appearance at the Oval, was handicapped by a slow pitch. But he did produce a nasty short-pitched ball which followed Andy Hayhurst and took his glove en route to wicketkeeper Graham Kersey. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Day 3=> Butcher putting best foot forward BY GEOFFREY DEAN AT THE OVAL Third day of four: Surrey (221 & 419-9) lead Somerset (260) by 380 runs FOR Mark Butcher, who got into the Surrey side two years ago as a bowler, it must be gratifying to be the county`s leading run scorer after a third of this season. A hundred yesterday - off 124 balls - gives him more championship runs (571 at 47) than Alec Stewart and Graham Thorpe put together. Butcher, 33 overnight, sprinted to his second hundred of the summer by 12.22 pm with some glorious shots all around the wicket off both front and back foot. Spinners used to trouble him but Mushtaq Ahmed presented few problems: "I can confidently say that I picked his googly," smiled Butcher. How? "By watching how it spins in the air," he added. But what has made Butcher, whose father played for Surrey, Glamorgan and England and now coaches Essex, into a successful batsman? A move up the order to No 3 (or to open, if Stewart is on international duty) was mooted on the pre-season tour in Perth to counter-balance the array of strokeplayers in Surrey`s top order and gave him the opportunity. How he took it - scoring four fifties and a hundred in his first six innings of the year. Butcher has always had the talent, scoring 574 championship runs in 1994 at 38, as well as posting his all-important maiden hundred, but, this summer, he has worked hard on hitting straighter. "I used to score a lot of my runs square of the wicket but now I`m playing much more through mid-off and mid- on." His second fifty came in only 37 balls yesterday and included four fours in one over from Jason Kerr. Butcher also gives credit to coach Grahame Clinton: "He`s been very good as far as the mental approach is concerned. When I got dropped on 14 against Durham after playing a terrible shot he didn`t give me a rollocking but just said to make them pay." They did. Butcher scored 167. Thanks largely to Butcher`s 102 and Andy Smith`s championship best 88 from 208 balls, Surrey eased past 400. With the featherbed pitch turning less than it did on the first day, Mushtaq was not the same threat. He is at least back in the wickets, having shrugged off the back injury that affected his form. Seven victims in this match follow the nine for Somerset against Yorkshire. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Day 4=> Bowler century helps Somerset hit their target BY D. J. RUTNAGUR AT THE OVAL Somerset (260 & 383-5) bt Surrey (221 & 419-9 dec) by 5 wkts SOMERSET fortified themselves for today`s Benson and Hedges Cup semi-final at Canterbury with a triumphant run chase completed by Peter Bowler, unbeaten with a well-paced if sombre 132, and a rampant Simon Ecclestone in deep gloom with nine balls to spare. They might have been less strained but for an interruption for rain in the morning which deprived them of six overs. If this pause provided some relief to Surrey, who at the time were being mauled by Somerset`s youthful openers, Mark Lathwell and Marcus Trescothick, they were sorely handicapped afterwards by the recurrence of Martin Bicknell`s injury in the back of the knee while he was in the middle of only his eighth over. In the circumstances, off-spinner Andy Smith was called on to bolster Surrey`s defences and he responded with accurate, thoughtful bowling. Summoned half an hour before lunch, Smith operated from the pavilion end until the start of the last hour, delivering 29 overs for 79 runs. After a brief respite, he returned to resist Somerset`s final assault. At the very outset of his first spell, Smith ended an opening stand of 70 in only 18 overs by having Trescothick caught at backward point from a cut. Then, as Somerset were closing on their target, he silenced the booming cannon that was Graham Rose, who scored 51 out of a partnership of 73 with Bowler off 46 balls, with six fours and two straight sixes struck in defiance of two fieldsman on the boundary. Surrey did not continue their innings left incomplete on Saturday and the demand on Somerset to score at just over five and a half an over was not excessive, considering that the pitch was bland and that Surrey`s attack, without Joey Benjamin, was below full strength. Lathwell and Trescothick, the most exciting openers round the shires, traded mainly in fours. Trescothick struck no fewer than seven of them in his 34, scored off only 55 balls. Trescothick`s departure had the effect of subduing Lathwell somewhat, but he had eight fours in his fifty, which he reached off 99 balls, and he struck three more in surpassing his best championship score of the season. Fluent as he drove through the covers and pulled anything short, Lathwell was discomfited only twice - both times by Tony Pigott. The first time was with a ball that bounced rather menacingly to take his glove, only to fall short of third slip. Then Pigott found his edge with a ball that left him, but again unavailingly. Perhaps, the wicketkeeper and the slip cordon stood too deep. It was in trying to force Carl Rackemann to square leg off the back foot that Lathwell, who batted with an admirable sense of responsibility for 141 minutes, disturbed his wicket. Surrey`s supporting seamers, Mark Butcher and Adam Hollioake, could place little restraint and the old-stagers Pigott and Rackemann took turns with the valiant aid of Smith to try to stop the steady advance that Somerset made through a century partnership between Bowler and Richard Harden. It was the last ball before the start of the final hour, in which Somerset required 124, that provided the breakthrough, Harden top-edging a pull off Rackemann. In the next over, Andy Hayhurst was gobbled up at short mid-wicket - the only quick dismissal that Surrey enjoyed. Source: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)