Steve Patterson is known as “Dead” by his Yorkshire team-mates, on account of his understated personality off the field, and yet the tailender’s career-best with the bat proved lively enough to frustrate the hosts Warwickshire on a bitterly cold and rain‑affected second day.
Patterson’s unbeaten 62 from 74 balls, in which he scythed 11 fours, was only his second half-century in 122 first-class innings and, in conjunction with Adil Rashid’s beautifully busy 63, the visitors scrambled to 368 for nine, with a fourth batting point secured.
Yorkshire’s lower order has been key to their back-to-back titles and in putting on 91 for the eighth wicket in 20 overs, the pair negated the second new ball and denied Warwickshire piling through the breach after reducing the visitors to 253 for seven in the 78th over.
“When I went in Rash was still there, so what I tried to do was just stick with him for a bit,” Patterson said after the close. “They started being aggressive with their bowling to me and I thought if I try and fend it off I’ll just spoon one up. I thought I’d try and go back at them a little bit.”
Dougie Brown, Warwickshire’s director of cricket, said: “Yorkshire are a very good side for a reason. They bat all the way down andhave got 11 dangerous batters. You just hope that you have your day and produce one or two deliveries that knock them over quite quickly.”
After morning rain wiped out the first session, Warwickshire’s bowlers started brightly enough, with Chris Woakes removing Jack Leaning for 51, caught behind, in the fourth over before Gary Ballance gave Tim Ambrose his second victim off the bowling of Keith Barker for 68.
Ambrose would gift momentum to the visitors immediately, however, with Liam Plunkett dropped first ball before going on to club 26.
His removal by Rikki Clarke, following a 40-minute delay for rain and hail, gave the home side a way in, only for Patterson and Rashid to confound the hosts.The latter was understandably the more orthodox of the two, combing wristy flicks with some delicate late cuts in his 104-ball innings, only to be bowled by the impressive Woakes seven overs before the close, and the first following a short delay for bad light.
Patterson continued on his merry if sometimes agricultural way however, belying a career strike-rate of 35 and passing this previous best of 53 made five years ago at Hove.
With Barker removing Jack Brooks for two caught behind, number 11 Ryan Sidebottom will resume alongside him in the morning, although with 87 overs already lost in the match and more rain forecast, a result feels only marginally more likely than a maiden Patterson hundred.
Meanwhile, the only thing that went on and off more frequently than the players at the Oval were the dodgy lights in the press box. It was an unsatisfactory day all round in which Surrey managed to lose their last 5 wickets for 69 in the morning and then, in an interrupted afternoon Marcus Trescothick led a reply with a rasping half century as Somerset reached 99 for one before one last shower put paid to proceedings for the day.
If the first day was dominated by Kumar Sangakkara’s slicing and dicing of the Somerset attack, then Trescothick is the bludgeon. He has now rationalised his game down to such economy of effort that there is the merest hint of a back foot moved across towards offstump and none beyond that. Pitched up and straight and he belts the ball back whence it came. Give him width, as the left armer Mark Footitt found to his cost, and he just muscles the ball away square. Whatever induced the bowler to contemplate bowling short and wide, but at one point it caused him to concede three fours and a six, the last one carved over wide third man, in the space of five balls as Trescothick raced past his half century from 75 deliveries.
Earlier, three wickets for Tim Groenewald and a brace of run-outs had seen the Surrey innings subside meekly from the position of strength established on the first day. Only Zafar Ansari, with 53, offered any resistance as Groenewald finished with 5 for 94.
