By Charles Randall at the Oval
First day of four: Surrey 193-3 v Worcestershire
A MUCH smaller evening attendance than usual made a mockery of yesterday's experimental noon start. Few office workers wanted to be coaxed into the ground to see the championship leaders free of charge, and Jason Ratcliffe's hundred consequently received modest acclaim not that the batsman himself noticed.
Would-be spectators were probably deterred by the weather, and play finished in the 67th over at around the usual time, 6.35pm, anyway, in milky sunshine after a light shower.
The pavilion was quiet and even the Bedser Lounge remained almost deserted. Perhaps the prospect of Graeme Hick batting for Worcestershire today will prove more tempting. Last year the noon experiment was tried for one day and there was no play because of rain.
On the plus side, the players were given an extra hour in bed, much appreciated by Ratcliffe, who normally has to leave his Thames Ditton home before 8am in the rush hour. ``It was more relaxing driving through less traffic,'' he said after his fifth first-class hundred.
Surrey's chances of controlling this match against Worcestershire were heightened by a first-wicket partnership between Ratcliffe and Ian Ward of 164, with the left-handed Ward making 64, his highest first-class score.
The absolute necessity of building a total in the absence of their three England batsmen and some testing swing bowling by Phil Newport accounted for Surrey's sedate momentum, which picked up as Ratcliffe neared his hundred in almost four hours.
After striking 13 fours and two meaty sixes, Ratcliffe was bowled by a quicker delivery from Richard Illingworth through an unworthy shot and Adam Hollioake followed next ball, the last of the over.
With the first delivery of the next over Newport bowled empty-handed off his full run-up to leave Nadeem Shahid wondering what had happened in the gloom until umpire Jeremy Lloyds calmly lobbed the ball to the bowler.
Shahid cut Illingworth's hat-trick ball for four and by the close Surrey were already well on their way to a formidable position. They need a solid total if they are to repeat their spin-delivered innings victory over Kent last weekend.
Day 2: Surrey seconds enjoy limelight
By Charles Randall at the Oval
Second day of four: Worcs (104-2) trail Surrey (502-7) by 398 runs
SURREY, the table leaders, are hoping to win their first championship since 1971 and, if they do, their back-up batsmen will have answered a few questions.
Yesterday Nadeem Shahid scored an excellent 124 to build on an equally important 100 by Jason Ratcliffe the previous day, major contributions from players in the second fiddle category to the absent Alec Stewart and his England colleagues.
Surrey accelerated to a major score, though what could be regarded as the real match did not start until 6.30, when Saqlain Mushtaq and Ian Salisbury were brought on to bowl their spin against Graeme Hick, standing tall after three consecutive championship hundreds for Worcestershire.
The spin attack should have held most of the trumps to Hick's ace, but unfortunately for Surrey the pitch, while offering grip, seemed dreadfully placid. Possibly Abdul Hafeez and Hick batted so well it seemed that way.
Shahid, formerly with Essex and now resigned to a role as a contracted reserve at the age of 29, gave rein to his talent once he had played himself in, driving with abandon for a 169-ball century, his sixth first-class hundred. Alistair Brown favoured the pull, twice hoisting Alamgir Sheriyar for six.
One of Shahid's drole suggestions to improve cricket has gone on record as: ``All first-class players should be presented with a gold card, which would allow them into any night club.'' This idea was not in Lord MacLaurin's Raising the Standard, but perhaps it should have been.
Surrey's innings became a one-way train when Shahid and Ben Hollioake, with a 57-ball fifty, put on 104 for the fifth wicket at five runs an over. Worcestershire's bowling at this stage was no better than tidy.
Worcestershire lost Vikram Solanki early, caught in the gully for a duck, and Hafeez, a replacement from the Birmingham League for the ill Philip Weston, squeezed a catch to silly mid-off just when he was beginning to enjoy himself in his second championship match.
As on Wednesday few spectators took advantage of the extra evening play from the noon start. The stay-aways missed a good day's cricket.
Day 3: Hick unhurried to four in a row
By Charles Randall at the Oval
Third day of four: Worcs (366-9) trail Surrey (502-7 dec) by 136 runs
GRAEME HICK secured his fourth consecutive championship hundred with an innings of 119 at the Oval yesterday and Worcestershire, against the odds, went on to avoid the follow-on with their last pair at the crease.
Hard work for Hick meant hours of toil for Surrey, who waited patiently for chances to accrue on a slow pitch and will need more luck if the championship leaders are to force victory today.
Hick, having survived a stumping chance the previous evening, batted almost without error for six hours before he finally chopped the second new ball on to his stumps.
This was Hick's 101st century in first-class cricket and his sixth against Surrey. The modus operandi has not always been the same, because in 1988 he pasted Surrey's bowlers for that summer's fastest hundred and his innings yesterday was his slowest, a switch to match-saving mode.
Resuming on 40, Hick allowed two hours to pass before striking his first boundary of the day, having dead-batted the spin of Saqlain Mushtaq and Ian Salisbury with exemplary concentration and technique.
When he passed his hundred in 5.25 hours he equalled Brian Lara's four in a row for Warwickshire four years ago, though the West Indian's sequence counted as five first-class hundreds in succession with his 375 in Antigua against England included.
The record of six in a row in England is held by C B Fry in the Edwardian era, and by a curious coincidence the great man reached four in a row twice in his career, each time with hundreds against Surrey. The last Englishman to hit four championship hundreds off the rack was Bill Athey, now Worcestershire's coach, in 1987.
Perhaps the only misgiving during Hick's glorious sequence has been his switch of bat-maker this year from Fearnley - the partnership produced 96 of his hundreds without the crowning glory - to Slazenger for improved financial terms.
Hick without a Fearnley in his hand hardly seems the same cricketer, though the change of marque has not diminished the flow of runs. At one stage yesterday he did change his bat for another Slazenger and was dismissed by Martin Bicknell four runs later.
Surrey looked like stranding Hick as they picked off his colleagues. Gavin Haynes was held acrobatically at point, and Saqlain and Salisbury made important in-roads by having Tom Moody and David Leatherdale caught at silly mid- off.
When Steve Rhodes was bowled for a duck by Saqlain's deceptive arm ball, Worcestershire's innings needed some stiffening, which Stuart Lampitt provided by keeping Hick company for 48 overs.
Hick, almost completely becalmed at one stage, broke free with 10 runs driven in an over when Saqlain tried his off-spin with only two fielders on the off side.
Worcestershire still needed 24 to avoid the follow-on when their usually vulnerable last man reached the crease, but Alamgir Sheriyar contributed to a sensible partnership with Richard Illingworth to break Surrey hearts.
Adam Hollioake experimented with his main bowling options, though he appeared to draw the line at his brother. Ben was apparently fit, but events, it seemed, had not quite descended to such desperation.
Day 4: Hollioake forces the hand of Hick
By Rob Steen at the Oval
Final day of four: Surrey v Worcestershire
``HE'S fictional but you can't have everything.'' Cecilia's reservations about her boyfriend in Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo might easily be applied to Graeme Hick, whose own purple flowering made the timing of Adam Hollioake's declaration here yesterday a calculation of such delicacy that Archimedes would have been hard pressed to come up with a credible solution.
As it transpired, Hollioake, gambler that he is, came over all philanthropic. Surprising one and all by declaring at lunch, he set Worcestershire 266 off a minimum of 67 overs and doubtless reasoned that a carrot of reasonable dimensions was required to dissuade the opposition from battening down the hatches.
Hick, moreover, was in residence by the second over, a fifth successive century in the offing.
Has a record-breaker ever been so lacking in public acclaim? What, one wonders, will Wisden browsers 50 years hence make of a man now breathing the same rarified air as Bradman and Compton yet whose international impact has been less substantial than that of Jeremy Coney?
Much as boys love big numbers, Hick's say more about his liabilities that his assets.
As he and the impish Ian Ward made hay in the morning, adding 93 in 17 overs to double their side's first-innings profit, Hollioake may well have theorised that the lure of history could work to Surrey's advantage. In seeking the hundred that would put him one behind the six consecutive centuries by Messrs Fry, Bradman and Procter, Hick might well allow caution to creep in, which would suit the country's deadliest spin duo down to the ground.
In the event, after an uncertain start, he was quickly into his stride, taking 10 off successive balls from Martin Bicknell, including one of those imperious short-arm pulls that make one pity the poor ball.
The advent of Saqlain Mushtaq, in the 12th over, promptly followed by that of Ian Salisbury, obviously held the key, and it was the Pakistani who picked Hick's lock, hurrying a top spinner into his pads as he aimed to leg. Back trudged Hick, stiff-legged and expressionless, flirtation with immortality over - for now.