Having played the final ball of the day back up the pitch to Jigar Naik in careful, almost exaggerated, defence, Kevin Pietersen turned, took off his batting gloves and offered his hand to Lewis Hill, fielding at short leg.
It was a nice gesture from Pietersen and one the bashfully smiling Hill clearly appreciated. In only his third first-class innings Hill had played with splendid positivity in scoring 126 from 147 balls, hitting 18 fours and two sixes, after the Leicestershire captain, Mark Cosgrove, had won the toss and chosen to bat first on a pretty flat Oval track.
Without Hill’s runs the Foxes’ score would have looked even more inadequate than Pietersen and Kumar Sangakkara began to make it look during an unbeaten partnership of 54 for Surrey’s third wicket as the shadows lengthened across the outfield. Both played with ominous determination in closing on 35 and Cosgrove can only hope his bowlers get rid of them early on the second day, otherwise Surrey can anticipate a first-innings lead of substantial proportions.
A wicketkeeper-batsman, Hill, 24, acquitted himself impressively with both bat and gloves on his debut in Leicestershire’s drawn match against Kent last week, scoring 58 in his first innings. But the return of Niall O’Brien from Ireland international duty meant he was scheduled to return to second-team duty until the opener Matt Boyce dropped out with injury.
Cosgrove and the head coach, Andrew McDonald, had seen enough at Canterbury to think Hill could handle opening against Surrey, and he did not let them down. He survived one chance when the Surrey captain, Gary Wilson, dived to his right behind the stumps but could not hang on to a rapidly travelling edge off Tom Curran when Hill was on 44. Otherwise he played with refreshing bravery, twice sweeping Zafar Ansari over a short leg side boundary as he raced past three figures.
“I was coaching at my local club, Lutterworth, yesterday morning when I got the word,” said Hill. “Approaching three figures my heart was racing, but Ben [Raine, with whom Hill put on 120 for Leicestershire’s sixth wicket] calmed me down.
“I’d have liked to go on to 150 or even 200, but I’m pretty happy with 126.”
Surrey, too, were happy enough, especially Matt Dunn, whose four wickets were a reward for bowling with intelligence as well as a decent pace. With Curran picking up three wickets and Chris Tremlett helping polish off the tail, the Brown Caps know they had the best of the day.
“We tried to apply pressure throughout their innings and though their middle order set us back a bit we stuck at it really well,” said Dunn. “Get one wicket and they often come in clusters, and given we had just three pace bowlers we did well, we bowled to our plans and for each other, and it paid off.”
