Cam Steel and Dan Lawrence both returned career-best figures as the defending champions dismissed Lancashire for 202 on an extraordinary first day of the First Division Vitality County Championship match at Emirates Old Trafford
Bowling in tandem, the two spinners engineered a collapse that saw the home side lose their last eight wickets for 52 runs in 18 overs, Steel finishing with five for 25 and Lawrence four for 91 from 21 overs which were bowled from the James Anderson End.
Included in Lawrence’s bag was the wicket of Josh Bohannon, whose 155-ball 84 has threatened to dominate the day, but once he had been winkled out, Lancashire’s later batsmen had no answer to the visiting spinners.
Surrey were 11 without loss after five overs at close of play with two of the overs being bowled by Australian Test off-spinner Nathan Lyon, who had earlier been one of two home batsmen to make a first-ball nought.
After the loss of the morning session to a wet outfield, the game began at 1.10 and it was hardly surprising that Surrey inserted their hosts on a pitch that had been under covers for most of two days.
The first wicket to fall was that of Lancashire skipper, Keaton Jennings, who became Lawrence’s first victim for his new county when the leg spinner clung on to a fierce straight drive low to his left.
However, Jennings’ dismissal for 11 in the 12th over of the innings only brought Bohannon to the crease and Lancashire’s top-scorer in 2023 picked up where he had left off last September. He put on 67 in 20 overs with Luke Wells before the opener casually pulled Tom Lawes straight to Lawrence at deep square leg and departed for 40.
George Balderson partnered Bohannon to tea when Lancashire were 101 for two after 36 overs but Surrey’s bowlers could be quietly content with their efforts in a blustery wind that had blown down the sheet above the makeshift sightscreen at the James Anderson End. Lawrence, in particular had bowled well after being brought on first change in the tenth over of the innings.
Nine balls after the resumption, Bohannon reached his fifty with a single off Lawrence and both he and Balderson continued to bat with some assurance against a visiting attack whose seamers got scant help from the Manchester pitch but restricted the scoring rate to under three runs an over.
Bohannon reached 4000 runs for Lancashire when a single off Lawrence took him to 76 and he achieved that landmark at an average of 48.19, a mark only three Lancashire batsmen have bettered at that stage.
However, the course of the match was transformed in the 56th over of the innings the spectators were afforded the rare, perhaps unprecedented, sight of two Surrey leg-spinners operating in tandem on the first day of a first-class match.
More significantly, the tactic brought immediate dividends when Balderson was bowled for 21 by Steel’s fifth ball of the day, a gorgeous leggie which turned sharply through the left-hander’s gate.
Five overs later, Lawrence had Bohannon caught for a well-made 84 by Jamie Smith when the short-leg fielder clung on to a sharp catch and Matty Hurst was leg before first ball when he played no shot to a googly.
Lancashire debutant Tom Bruce became Lawrence’s fourth victim when he was skilfully caught at the wicket by Ben Foakes for 17 and Steel continued the rampage when he had Tom Apinwall, another players making his first-class debut, caught at slip by Jamie Overton for nought and Tom Bailey snaffled at cover by sub fielder Ryan Patel when he miscued a swipe.
Steel then dismissed Will Williams and Nathan Lyon, both caught at slip by Overton, to complete a memorable day for the all-rounder, who made a century in the corresponding game in April last season.
