Ojha's 6 spins Surrey to victory

Surrey wrapped up victory over Northamptonshire by 333 runs at Wantage Road before lunch on the final day, with Pragyan Ojha claiming 6 wickets.

The morning started with Northampton 103-4 with the nightwatchman Lee Daggett and the skipper Andrew Hall at the crease. Stuart Meaker and Pragyan Ojha opened the bowling and both started up with maidens, putting pressure on the home side with a succession of balls beating the outside edge of the bat.

It only took 20 minutes for the breakthrough, though. Stuart Meaker banged one in at Andrew Hall who tried to pull but could only find a top edge which was fantastically caught by a diving Steven Davies. Niall O’Brien on a king pair survived his first ball, but in the same over, Pragyan Ojha had his first wicket of the day when the Irish wicketkeeper tried an outrageous reverse sweep and was caught at silly point by Gareth Batty without scoring.

James Middlebrook joined Daggett at the crease and the pair worked hard in difficult conditions against the spin of Ojha and the pace of Meaker.  They batted for half an hour playing the odd aggressive stroke off Meaker but could hardly get a run off Ojha. And just before 12 O’clock, Ojha brought an end to the partnership when he bowled Daggett for 16.

Gareth Batty replaced Meaker at the Lynne Wilson end of the ground and continued to add pressure on Middlebrook and the new batsman Chaminda Vaas. Ojha then had his first fifer for Surrey when he had Middlebrook caught at silly point by 12^th man Zafar Ansari, on for Tom Maynard. The score 149-8 and Ojha’s figures 5-5 of 15 overs.

Then, a couple of overs later Ojha trapped Dave Burton lbw and Surrey had won the game as Stephen Peters didn’t bat. 152 all out and Ojha had picked up figures of 6-8 off his 16.3 overs.

21 points is what Surrey have collected and even though they still sit in third place, promotion is in their own hands as they trail Northampton by 23 points with a vital game in hand.

Surrey now turn their attentions to tomorrow where they face the Sussex Sharks in the CB40 semi final at the Kia Oval, starting at 12:45pm. You can find the preview and the squad here http://bit.ly/rdGRXg