Date-stamped : 22 Sep97 - 06:20 Kent hit sticky patch on their own sporting wicket By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Canterbury First day of four: Kent (217-9) lead Surrey (124) by 93 runs THE pitch at Canterbury was reported to Lord`s last evening after the close of a day`s play in which 19 wickets fell. The umpires, Alan Whitehead and Trevor Jesty, adding to their obligation to contact the England and Wales Cricket Board whenever 15 wickets fall on the opening day of a championship match, gave their opin- ion that a hard, fast, grassy pitch was underprepared. A dele- gation will in- spect the pitch and watch proceedings today. If they conclude that the "underpreparation" was serious, Kent could lose 10, 15 or even 25 points. A deduction suspended for 12 months is a more likely outcome. There will be suspicions of skulduggery in Wales, but that would be an exaggeration. This was, I suspect, a deliberately lively pitch which, with some help from the weather, played a bit more sportingly than the home side wanted. Other counties would have done the same in similar circum- stances, human nature and professional sport being what it is. (Imagine how often it might have happened with promotion and relegation at stake.) In any case, the events of yesterday have pointed the way to Glamorgan`s first championship title since 1969. Glamorgan will feel that Kent, who have no chance now of maxi- mum bonus points, are about to be hoisted by their own petard. The ap- propriate phrase might be, instead, that they have over- egged the pud- ding. They found no difficulty at all in ac- quiring four bonus points for bowling first after winning the toss. With a lead of 93 overnight, in- deed, they will probably win and add another 16 to their season`s total. The snag looks like being that they will not get more than a single point for batting, let alone the maximum four which a first innings total of 350 would earn. Points are awarded when a side reach- es 200, 250, 300 and 350 in the first 120 overs. A total of 21 points would not be sufficient for Kent to win the title if Glamorgan, having retained their one point lead by bowling Somerset out at Taunton for 252, go on to win from an overnight score of 159 for two. Their captain, Matthew Maynard, with 76 not out and his prede- cessor, Hugh Morris, with a painstaking 49 not out, have taken them a step closer to the championship, although at this moment the two counties are level on 236 points. Realistically, if Glamorgan win the match they will also win the title. It is too early to be sure, not least because the weather may change. An autumnal haze played some part in yesterday morn- ing`s ex- traordinary events at Canterbury, helping the ball to swing, but even in the period between the morning and evening dew, the pitch remained sporting, to put it mildly, and wickets fell largely because of extra bounce, or the occasionally risky attempts of batsmen on both sides to play over ambitiously. This particular strip, on the higher side of the square where most of its neighbours have been relaid, was last used almost exactly four years ago on the day, ironically, when Glamorgan beat Kent to win the Sunday League. It was quick and bouncy on that occasion, too, as Viv Richards, who had his hand broken by a ball from Duncan Spencer, will recall. Yesterday, it was not far from being a good pitch -too many, after all, are bland, slow and bounceless and it is worth not- ing that no one was hit. Only Graham Cowdrey received a gen- uinely unplayable ball: the bounce otherwise was excessive rather than treacherous. The combination of a slight lingering mist and morning dew would have made it virtually obligatory to put the other side in on win- ning the toss, even if Brian Fitch, retiring after look- ing after the St Lawrence ground for 28 years during which he has twice been groundsman of the year, had shaved a little more grass off. Kent were without Paul Strang yesterday and their other main spinner, Min Patel, is still unfit. Moreover, Surrey were expected to be without Chris Lewis and Martin Bicknell and Adam Hollioake have had to miss the game because of injury: it was no surprise at all that a pitch favouring seam bowlers was produced. It is a question of degree and the answer will be in the hands of today`s delegation. Had they seen Mark Ealham bat, they would know that conditions were far from unplayable. He batted for 2.5 hours with stoicism and skill before cutting to deep third man, where he was ath- letically caught by Mark Butcher, one of only two other batsmen to play anything like a long innings. Alan Wells made 48 solid runs in 32 overs, which, believe it or not, was five overs longer than the duration of the entire Surrey innings. They were whistled out before lunch for 124 in 2hr 10min before a crowd of 3,300 watching in amazement through the hazy sunshine. Chris Lewis hit six handsome and defiant fours before he was caught low at extra cover, one of several good catches by Kent, none more brilliant than David Fulton`s, diving forward to scoop the ball up left-handed at short leg. All the Kent bowlers enjoyed them- selves, especially Julian Thompson, whose excellent new ball spell earned him four for 33 after three matches running as 12th man. The quality of Ed Smith`s batting was clear after Fulton had edged the first ball of the Kent innings to second slip but Joey Ben- jamin had him lbw but those who saw Butcher bowling for Eng- land at Head- ingley will deduce something about the difficulty of batting yester- day from his figures of three for 24. Sur- rey may be a welcome in the hillsides after all. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Kent bow to lordly romp by Stewart By Christopher Martin-Jenkins at Canterbury Second day of four: Surrey (124 and 288-3) lead Kent (220) by 192 runs THURSDAY`S lifters became yesterday`s long-hops and with a display of glorious attacking batting on Canterbury`s "under- prepared" pitch, Alec Stewart turned this championship- deciding match on its head. Coming in when Surrey were still 27 behind Kent with two second in- nings wickets gone, he and Darren Bick- nell, who made a stately, un- troubled and almost flawless hun- dred at a time when his future for Sur- rey must have been under some threat, put on 219. This seemed to make a mockery of the solemn lunchtime ceremony during which the mettlesome pitch of the first day on which 19 wick- ets had fallen was inspected by a panel from the ECB`s pitches adviso- ry group. Harry Brind, the pitches inspector, Jon Carr, the director of cricket operations, Bill Hughes of Hampshire and Warwickshire`s Mike Hurst have unneccessarily postponed a verdict until they have seen more. The slightly excessive life on the first day has gone, leaving something very close to a perfect pitch. By tea-time, when Stewart had raced to a scintillating century off 90 balls with 19 fours, they might almost have concluded that pitches as good as this one will kill the game. The ball came on to the bat briskly and evenly and it left Stewart`s blade in particular like a shot from the canon on a man o` war. If it turns over the weekend for Surrey`s spinners, Ian Salisbury and Rupesh Amin, the boyish-looking left-arm orthodox bowler from Beddington who looked a natural on Thursday, it could turn out to have been close to an ideal surface, needing only a little less friski- ness on the first day. Certainly this will now be a very good game and Kent, batting last, are in danger of defeat or at least of experiencing the same fustration at Surrey`s hands that Glamorgan did at the Oval two weeks ago. Without Paul Strang`s leg-breaks, they looked a little lost amidst the fury of Stewart`s counter- attack and they are in danger of finishing as runners-up in three of the four major competi- tions this season. They need quick wickets today and a resolute final ef- fort with the bat. Only victory and a Glamorgan draw or loss would pro- vide the last twist in the tale. Thirty-five overs were lost yesterday because of bad light. Ben Hollioake picked up a caught-and-bowled from the ninth ball of the day to end the Kent innings at 220, leaving Ben Phillips deserved- ly not out after an admirably straight-batted innings which confirmed his all-round promise. For Kent, for a while at least, there must have been mixed emotions over the events which followed, like those of the man watching his loathed mother-in- law driving over a cliff in his new car. With every boundary tucked with upright ease by Bicknell off his legs, or rifled to the cover boundary by Stewart, the threat of having points de- ducted receded. But so, too, did Kent`s opportunity for a com- fortable win. Bicknell and Mark Butcher put on 69 for the first wicket, de- liberately taking every scoring opportunity. The ball did not swing as it had in Thursday`s far warmer temperature and anything short, wide or overpitched was firmly dealt with. Butcher hooked Alan Iggles- den for six to the unusually short boundary on the top side of the ground and Bicknell, admirably positive for a man who has not been able to hold a regular place this season, punished Julian Thompson with hooks and deft strokes off his legs. There was a double setback before lunch when Butcher drove Mark Ealham crisply back towards his shins and Jason Ratcliffe was su- perbly caught off the next ball by Trevor Ward, diving to his left and clinging on with both hands. It was not apparent then how expensive a half-chance was missed by Gra- ham Cowdrey, also diving left, when Bicknell, 30 not out, drove at a wide ball from Ealham. Bicknell was 44 at the interval, Stewart only one, but it was the acting captain who was first to reach his hundred as he reeled off square-cuts and pulls through the murky afternoon. Bicknell`s second hundred of the season was hardly slovenly - 173 balls, 14 fours - but Stewart`s was a lordly romp. He had made only four fifties in the championship this season before yesterday, but one of them became 271 against Yorkshire and the last thing Kent need today is a repeat. Phillips brought them respite in the fading light when Bicknell was bowled by a good length ball. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Kent hit by suspended penalty after `poor` pitch verdict By Paul Weaver at Canterbury Kent v Surrey KENT were found guilty yesterday of preparing a "poor" pitch for their crucial championship fixture against Surrey. The surface was inspected by a panel from the pitches advisory group after 19 wickets had fallen on the opening day of the match at Canter- bury. The panel, consisting of Bill Hughes and Mike Hurst, both group members, and director of cricket operations John Carr, had postponed their verdict, and after Surrey`s powerful sec- ond- innings performance on Friday there was little possibility of Kent being hit by the maximum 25-point penalty, and even a chance that they might get off altogether. Yesterday, however, the panel chairman, Hughes, announced that the club had been handed a suspended 10-point penalty. The penal- ty will be applied if Kent produce a second "poor" pitch within 12 months. Hughes said: "The pitch had not been suitably prepared for the start of a four-day match. This had exaggerated the effect of help- ful overhead conditions on the first day, contributing to exces- sive movement and bounce, and tilting the balance too heavily in favour of the bowlers. "In the panel`s view, the pitch had been insufficiently scari- fied and rolled, and the fact that it had not been cut during the five days leading up to the commencement of the match had also con- tributed to its unsatisfactory performance on the first day. The improve- ment on the second day was due to the pitch being cut before the start of play, to the use of the heavy roller between innings and to the improvement in overhead con- ditions." Yesterday`s announcement came at the wrong psychological mo- ment as Kent set about scoring the 276 needed to win the match, and possibly the championship. Surrey had resumed on 288 for three, and their advantage of 192 runs appeared decisive. But they lost their remaining seven wickets for just 83 runs in 98 minutes. Only Alec Stewart, who was last out for 170, stood firm as Surrey`s lack of resolve matched their mis- erable first-innings effort. They had added only four runs when Alistair Brown was caught behind off Ben Phillips for four, and Nadeem Shahid went to the same combination. Ben Holl ioake and Chris Lewis were also dis- missed cheaply and Stewart was starting to look lonely. Kent, rather like Ivan Lendl and the old Labour Party, could be accused of having a silver medal mentality. When they were beaten by Surrey in the Benson and Hedges Cup final, it was their sixth successive defeat in Lord`s finals. They have also been cham- pionship runners-up five times in the past 30 years and second in the Sunday League three times since 1970. Kent lost their first wicket at 36, when Ed Smith was caught in the gully off Benjamin, and Ward was out in Mark Butcher`s first over before Alan Wells gave a simple return catch to his for- mer Sussex team-mate Ian Salisbury. But as the Surrey bowlers consistent- ly failed to put the ball in the right place, David Fulton scored his first championship century, before being fifth out at 210. Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)