Delray Rawlins and his Sussex teammates followed an excellent effort with the bat by taking twelve wickets on the second and final day of their pre-season friendly against Surrey at the Kia Oval on Tuesday.
A young attack missing Ollie Robinson, Stuart Meaker, and Mitch Claydon dismissed Surrey’s top-order twice as the home side could only muster 284 runs in just shy of the 90 overs allocated to them on day two.
With the luxury of Sussex’s 382 for 5 declared on the scoreboard, first-year pros Sean Hunt and Henry Crocombe extracted significant swing from the new ball by bowling an aggressive, full length.
Despite being hit for two boundaries in his first over, Surrey academy product Hunt was brave enough to stick with such a plan and was rewarded in his second over when the ball swung late, took Mark Stoneman’s edge, and offered a comfortable catch for Stiaan van Zyl at first slip.
That began a top-order procession that saw the home side lose six wickets for 30 runs. Crocombe dismissed Ryan Patel for a duck with an inswinging beauty that crashed into the pads directly in front of the stumps, before striking again in his next over when he lured former Sussex man Laurie Evans into a loose drive that carried to Rawlins in the covers to make it 31 for 3.
Wickets fell at regular intervals, Surrey’s ninth wicket went down when Laurie Evans’ second, more watchful dig ended on 36 when he charged past Rawlins’ left-arm spin and left Ben Brown to complete the easiest of stumping’s.
Rawlins finished with figures of 10-2-37-1.
When asked about his overall performance Rawlins said, “It was a good two days, I think it was a very productive outing not just for myself, but also my teammates.”
Rawlins went on the say, “It was a nice surface, it favored batting a bit, but you still had to get your head down and bat.”
“I am definitely buzzing to be back playing cricket, and I am looking forward to another outing on Thursday,” concluded Rawlins.
