Rawlins & Sussex Struggle on Day Three Against Surrey
IslandStats.com
Spinners Dan Moriarity and Amar Virdi put the skids under Delray Rawlins and his Sussex teammate’s second innings at the Kia Oval to reduce them to 109 for 9 in a frenetic final session of the day and bowl Surrey dramatically back into the final Bob Willis Trophy fixture.
Moriarty took a career-best 6 for 60 from 16 overs and Virdi 3 for 31 from 13 and it took a 40-run ninth-wicket partnership between former Surrey fast bowler Stuart Meaker and Jack Carson to rescue Sussex from the depths of 62 for 8.
Meaker remains on a fighting 32 not out, but Moriarty had Carson caught at slip for six three overs from stumps, and tomorrow Sussex will resume with an overall lead of 136.
But Surrey will hope they are not chasing much more than 150 in the final innings on a dry surface as they seek a first win of the competition, following four defeats in the south group, even after earlier battling their way to 388 in reply to Sussex’s first innings 415.
Delray Rawlins had already struck an important blow for Sussex with his slow left-armers, claiming the prized wicket Amla, who had started the day on six but was leg-before for 26 in the 23rd over of the morning after battling for more than an hour against Carson and the accurate fast-medium of both Henry Crocombe and Wiese.
Bermudan all-rounder Rawlins, introduced to bowl his left-arm spin in the 67th over of the innings, straightened one just enough to beat Amla’s forward defensive and hit him on the back pad in front of off stump.
Rawlins finished with figures of 20-1-78-1.
During the Sussex second inning Rawlins scored 9 off 10 balls, he hit 1 four in his 23-minute stay at the crease.
