Skipper Batty out to burst Essex’s bubble
Essex v Surrey
May 26-29, County Ground, Chelmsford, 11:00
FIRST face second at Chelmsford but Surrey captain Gareth Batty is confident the hunters can soon become the hunted.
Essex comfortably beat Hampshire inside three days last weekend to take control of the Division One table, and they now face a Surrey side who drew their London derby with Middlesex last weekend.
After that round of matches, where rain had a big impact, full focus now turns to Chelmsford, where Essex are yet to taste defeat in the County Championship this year, drawing their opening game of the season at home to Lancashire.
Surrey have hardly been shabby away from their Oval home though, their draw at Lord’s following on from a clash with Warwickshire at Edgbaston last month, where the sides couldn’t be separated either.
And Batty is sure that a pitch at Chelmsford that tends to lead to results will work in Surrey’s favour.
The spinner and captain said: “They’re running hot and playing on result pitches.
“They’re getting on the right end of them 50 per cent of the time, but we’ll go there confident about how we’re playing and hopefully it’s a result surface that we’re on the right end of.”
Sri Lankan legend and Surrey batsman, Kumar Sangakkara, announced he was hanging up his First-Class gloves at the end of the season following the derby with Middlesex, having hit centuries in each innings of that clash.
It means he will be available for this vital clash and Surrey skipper Batty hopes his side, especially his younger stars, can take tips from the 39-year-old between now and the end of the campaign.
Batty added: “You only need to look at how Kumar plays. He’ll go down as a great of the game when he finishes.
“Our youngsters are learning off him and that is the greatest thing that he can pass down to our players.
“You look at how Ben Foakes is developing, as well as Sam Curran and Dominic Sibley. The boys are playing very nicely, but it’s just one thing we need to extend to get in to the hundreds just like the great man.
“It’s a privilege to be batting at the other end with him and I’m sure our young players are thinking that.”
Despite leading the table at the early stage, remember just four games have been played, Essex are determined not to get too far ahead of themselves.
Captain Ryan ten Doeschate said: “Obviously there’s no need to look at the table at this stage of the season. It is more a process of how we are playing and what we’re doing on the field than the points on the board. To have 57 points at this stage of the season is fantastic. We’ll keep trying to build on what we’re doing.
“We knew that eventually the points were going to come. We felt before the one-day campaign we hadn’t played particularly well and we’d got probably more than we deserved in the first three games.
“We were talking then about putting a game together where we got all the elements right. The win over Hampshire is as close as I can remember to a perfect performance.”