Cambridge at their Best as Surrey Crumble

READ The Tab’s coverage of yesterday’s play HERE.

A sparkling 150 from Paul Best put Cambridge MCCU in the driving seat against an under-par Surrey side at Fenners today.

Best’s century was part of a score of 455, creating a 221 run lead, and meaning that Surrey will have to bat well on day three to avoid an embarrassing defeat.

It all looked rather different at the start of the day. Resuming on 151-5 after an excellent first day, Cambridge were rather bogged down, scoring just 31 runs in the first hour. Dean Bell took a painstaking 71 minutes to make just 9 runs before slashing a wild shot to first slip off Spriegel.

At the other end however Park, resuming from a day one score of 25 built patiently and began to look more and more fluent as lunch approached, carving one particularly wide ball through the off side for a delightful four.

But when Amit Gupta came and went for 10, (an innings which included a fabulous straight six, but little else) it looked like Park, who had just passed 50, would run out of partners at 212-6.

Enter Best. A stylish left hander with a penchant for the sweep shot, he came in looking to play positively. A lovely cover drive, the shot of the morning, saw him to lunch on 21 not out, but his real scoring came largely behind square on the leg side.

Best scored freely behind square on the leg side particularly

It must be said that the Surrey bowling aided his cause. Too much was down the leg-side, and in the period just after lunch (and a short rain break) the professional outfit seemed to lose concentration, gifting Cambridge runs with poor deliveries.

When Park departed for 81, Turnbull followed soon after for just 5, and it looked like the lead might be as little as 100, but Best powered on, supported by a neat 47 by number 10 batsman Poysden.

Aside from Best’s innings much of the attention was still on Kevin Pietersen, making his comeback from injury. In truth there was little to say about the former England captain in the field, moving from gully to mid-on (with the occasional stint at cover).

His captaincy was aggressive early on but as the match slipped away from Surrey there was little he could do.

KP will however have the chance to make an impact in tomorrow’s play, when he resumes on 22 not out, Surrey having stuttered to 55-2 by the close of play, still almost 200 runs behind.

Play continues at 11am tomorrow.