Burns century sees Surrey shade honours on opening day of championship match against Northamptonshire

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Rory Burns picked up his first century of the season after scoring just 119 from his previous six County Championship innings this season as Surrey finished the opening day of their LV=County Championship game on 261-6 after being put in.

Surrey went into the game top of the table, but without Ollie Pope due to illness. The visitors won the toss and put Surrey in.

Northamptonshire, looking for their first win in this season’s Championship, opened up with Ben Sanderson and Matthew Kelly. Opener Ryan Patel hit the first boundary of the day by straight driving the Australian Kelly to the fence in the second over of the day.

It took a bowling change for Northants to pick up their first wicket of the session when Patel (19) chipped Luke Procter straight to cover in the second hour of the session.

That was to be the only success for the visitors in the opening session where the ball beat bat on a couple of occasions but mostly the batsman had the early advantage with Rory Burns (33*)  and Hashim Amla (19*) taking Surrey to 73-1 at lunch.

Northamptonshire hit back quickly at the start of the second session when Procter picked up two wickets in successive deliveries. First to go was Amla (21) beaten by pace from a fine delivery and next ball Will Jacks (0) trapped lbw.

Burns saw off the hat trick ball and went on to bring up his half century with his sixth boundary off 121 balls.

Ben Foakes joined Burns in the middle with the pair adding 46 for the fourth wicket when Foakes top edged a hook shot which skied up into the air and into the gloves of Lewis McManus.

There were no further alarms for Surrey with the hosts reaching tea on 154-4, with Burns edging towards a century on 77 not out.

Burns eventually reached his century off 259 balls spanning almost six hours including 11 fours before getting dismissed for 107, his highest score of the season so far after a disappointing start to the campaign.

It was down to another fine knock from Sam Curran with his third successive half century in three innings to steer Surrey to 261-6 at the close, with Curran unbeaten on 71.

Surrey     Northamptonshire

                                 LV= Insurance County Championship  Thursday 5^th May 2022

                                            Surrey  261-6

                                          Peter Moore at the Kia Oval

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