Surrey 42 for 0 path Somerset 269 (Davies 86, Trescothick 65, Clarke 7-55) by 227 runs
Many members at this hallowed floor have recollections of Clarke rising from Surrey’s academy, spotty however brimming with an effervescent abilities. His third County Championship match, 15 years previously, brought a sublime 153 no longer out against Somerset at Taunton. Add in the nonchalant catches in the slips and the tempo and jump he generated from his 6ft 4in frame, and Clarke turned into once directly marked out as a participant of supreme promise. It took totally 10 top quality fits for England to be persuaded to make a selection out him in an international squad.
Over the following years, the alluring prospect of Clarke providing England with runs, wickets and catches – as he did in two performed Tests in Bangladesh in 2003 – gave map to frustration at why this kind of abilities turned into once stagnating. And so Clarke left his dwelling county in 2007, taking on the Derbyshire captaincy in an try and reinvigorate his profession. The pass failed, spectacularly. By the summer season’s stop Clarke had given up the job after which offer up the county for accurate. But then got here a pass to Warwickshire, where Clarke became a cricketer of the calibre and consistency that of us that had watched the promise of those early performances for Surrey anticipated, despite the incontrovertible reality that an England recall never rather got here.
After a decade of trophies and fulfilment at Edgbaston, notwithstanding this summer season’s struggles, Clarke returned dwelling. First, he signed a two-one year contract starting subsequent one year. Then, after Dominic Sibley moved to Warwickshire, the two had been thinking a few mid-season mortgage swap, and Clarke turned into once push lend a hand into Surrey’s group.
He returned to search out a fully fresh characteristic. It turned into once no longer merely that Clarke had old. Where once he turned into once a wayward cricketer, now he turned into once recruited to lift solidity. And whereas he had spent his first Surrey profession in the stop six, Clarke has returned to a plight of No.8, and even nine, which rather appears to be like to belittle his 16 top quality centuries.
But whereas Clarke turned into once away, he developed into a extremely skilled bowler, adept at slicing the ball from an ungainly high. Where he had once sprayed the ball in pursuit of wickets, he returned with the persistence to detect a probing line and length remorselessly.
Over 16 exquisite seasons in real cricket, never have those qualities been as persuasive as this day. On a pitch on which Somerset had misplaced totally one wicket in the morning session, and even that on the level of lunch, Clarke jagged the ball spitefully every ways at an ungainly length.
The Oval is no longer the form of floor on which many bowlers own a spell of 5 for 32 in ten overs, never solutions doing so directly after lunch on the most most primary day. But Clarke bowled with masterful precision and subtlety from the Vauxhall Discontinue, eliciting edges from George Bartlett and Edward Byrom with away circulate in between finding in-swing to entice James Hildreth lbw, uprooting Tom Abell’s off stump after which, most emphatically of all, finding a beefy length to Peter Trego. A rash power ensued; it missed the ball, which as a replace dismantled the off and heart stumps. Remarkably, it turned into once Clarke’s first Surrey 5-fer.
Nor turned into once he done yet. If a ten-over spell had published admirable sturdiness in a man who turns 36 by the stop of the month, the impact turned into once confirmed when, after tea, he plucked out Dom Bess’s power in his followthrough after which produced a menacing spell of bouncers to Steven Davies as early evening shadows extended onto the outfield, which at closing culminated in Davies deciding on out truthful leg. In decimating Somerset’s high notify, Clarke had topped 400 top quality wickets, and 100 for Surrey, and encapsulated why he has been amongst the most useful gamers in the shires in the closing decade. On this proof, he could well maybe yet remain so for several years yet to map lend a hand.
No longer that Clarke turned into once the in actual fact participant to abilities being lend a hand at The Oval. Davies played sumptuously on his top quality return, after his wintry climate pass to Taunton, marrying the finesse and fluency of his dreamy tiring cuts and drives with fortitude to withstand Clarke, and stabilise Somerset from the particles of 138 for 6. If their eventual 269 stays far below the most modern norm at The Oval, the pitch offered Somerset’s seamers plentiful circulate at some level of their 14 overs at Surrey. Somerset could well maybe additionally yet have a working total.
Tim Wigmore is a contract journalist and creator of 2d XI: Cricket in its Outposts
