It is always gratifying when the old ‘uns can still show the youngsters a thing or two. On the first day of this match, Kumar Sangakkara, 39 years old in October, batted with sublime skill in making 171. Marcus Trescothick, the bespectacled batting sage of Somerset is, by a year, Sangakkara’s senior, but here, almost single-handedly, until he found some support from Peter Trego, he held his side’s innings together on a brutal day of weather in which, as Crowded House had it, there were four seasons in one day. Or two of them anyway.
Trescothick made 127 out of 233 while he was at the crease, the 59th hundred of his illustrious career, and if he looks a little more comfortable round the middle these days, it lost nothing by comparison to some of those blistering heyday masterpieces.
Trescothick was eventually out after almost five hours batting, misjudging a delivery from Gareth Batty, himself Sangakkara’s senior by a fortnight, and operating round the wicket, that went on with the arm rather than spinning away out of the bowler’s rough. It was clever bowling, and the first obvious mistake that Trescothick had made in 213 deliveries during which he hit 20 fours and a six. Somerset had reached 353 all out by the close, 110 behind.
It is just possible these days that, aside from running between the wickets, the economy of effort that characterises Trescothick’s batting is even more labour-saving than that of Chris Gayle.
If there is any concession to foot movement it is no more than a small shifting of his left foot back and across towards the offside. From there, bat already high, he leans gently forward into his full-face drives if the ball is pitched up, works it square on either side if it is shorter, and, given width, simply cudgels the ball away, or, with contrasting delicacy, dabs it persuasively to third man. Sometimes he swept the spin of Batty or, earlier, Zafar Ansari. As an exhibition of how to rationalise a game, it could not be bettered: what other scoring tools did he need?
If Surrey, in making 463, had not managed to maximise their own innings, then Ravi Rampaul, the former West Indies paceman, made such inroads into the innings that they looked to be bossing proceedings. Rampaul, never slender, is, like Trescothick, carrying a little extra timber these days but he was the pick of the Surrey seamers, bustling in, hitting a hard heavy bat-jarring length, and maintaining a challenging line.
The wickets of Chris Rogers, who lost his off stump, possibly via his inside edge, and James Hildreth, caught at the wicket, were important ones, as were the later ones of Trego, caught behind for 41, and Craig Overton, stunningly taken by Ansari, to his left and diving at extra cover for 44, to give Rampaul a fifth wicket for the second successive match.
In between times, Roelof van der Merwe was given out lbw, pushing some way forward. His distaste for the outcome was obvious, and once, in the distant past before the decision review system when umpires were more reticent, he may have had a point. Batsmen these days have no such luxury.
