EVEN if every other delivery he sent down had been pitiful dross, Oliver Hannon-Dalby's 37th ball in senior cricket would have justified the teenager's inclusion in Yorkshire's XI at the Oval.
That 37th ball reared up from just short of a length, caught the shoulder of Mark Ramprakash's bat and flew to second slip, where Anthony McGrath took a routine catch to give Hannon-Dalby a maiden scalp to treasure on debut.
Ramprakash's is the mo
st prized wicket in county cricket. The 38-year-old, who averaged more than 100 last season and the season before, was seeking to become only the 25th – and probably the last – man to reach a century of first-class hundreds.
He had reached 29 and, after a couple of false strokes early on, was looking well set when he was undone by the extra bounce extracted by Yorkshire's 6ft 8ins 18-year-old. There is never an inopportune time to dismiss Ramprakash, but Hannon-Dalby's intervention seemed particularly important yesterday.
Surrey had taken lunch in the relative comfort of 108-1, with Mark Butcher in fine touch alongside Ramprakash. Yorkshire looked as if they might be condemned to an arduous day in the field but Surrey had added just four more runs when Hannon-Dalby struck.
His initial incision soon turned into a gaping wound, with Deon Kruis returning to remove Usman Afzaal and Ali Brown – both in fine form of late – in successive overs. Surrey had lost three wickets for nine runs in 20 balls and were wobbling at
121-4.
It was a false dawn for Yorkshire. The hosts repaired the damage with a partnership of 72 and then put themselves firmly in command with an unbeaten stand of 203 between centurions Mark Butcher and Matt Nicholson, who together plundered 183 runs in 31 overs after tea.
Even on a good batting surface, Surrey's score of 396-5, having won the toss, was better than par, especially given the travails experienced by Yorkshire's top order in recent weeks.
Still, the visitors could certainly be encouraged by Hannon-Dalby's introduction to the first XI. Posing problems with his lift, he mixed up his stock back-of-a-length delivery with probing fuller balls. One yorker left Ramprakash on his backside.
He opened with a maiden and conceded just eight runs in his opening spell of five overs before returning to take his wicket.
Only in the evening session, when he bowled too many short balls at Matt Nicholson and was carted away to the boundary, did he look anything other than a seasoned professional.
Certainly, his debut was more auspicious than Rana Naved-ul-Hasan's. The Pakistani, one of the most successful fast bowlers in county cricket during his three seasons with Sussex, had problems with no-balling and his 17 wicketless overs cost 79 runs.
He gave the openers too much to leave, although he did hurry Butcher into a miscued pull, and he was expensive with the second new ball.
Yorkshire had been well placed shortly before tea, when Anthony McGrath, as he so often does, broke a partnership by having Jon Batty caught at slip by Joe Sayers. Surrey were 193-5 and with No 7 Nicholson's career average just 22.47, the visitors must have felt that they were into the tail.
More than 200 runs later, Butcher and Nicholson are still there. McGrath, captaining the side in the absence of Darren Gough, perhaps kept himself on too long, enabling Nicholson to settle before tea.
In the evening session, Yorkshire allowed the game to drift, apparently hoping to kill time until the new ball was due. Surrey added 74 in 14 overs against the part-time likes of McGrath and Jacques Rudolph, and with both batsmen primed, they accelerated against the new ball.
Butcher's terrific innings contained handsome strokes all around the wicket; the most delightful were the drives he eased through the off-side with finesse and precision. Nicholson's batting is not so aesthetically pleasing, but he spanks the ball with remarkable force off both front-foot and back. Dropped at slip on 60, he hit 15 boundaries and might have had another had a pigeon not got in the way of a fierce cut.
The unfortunate pigeon, caught unawares when grazing too close to the bat at backward point, restricted him to a two, but it paid the price with its life. Its corpse was unceremoniously carried off the field by Rana and dumped in a gutter.
If yesterday's chastening final session was anything to go by, Yorkshire's hopes of victory here are heading to a similar destination.
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