Surrey storm to a sixth championship victory

Surrey completed a resounding victory over Leicestershire by 10 wickets at Guildford today - their sixth win in the championship this summer. The home county scored 119-0 from 39.3 overs with Mark Butcher (47 n.o.) and Ian Ward (61 n.o.) taking the title-holders home with a day and a half to spare.

Martin Bicknell, who took all four wickets in the first innings, produced yet another magnificent display of fast bowling. His return of 9-47 following 7-72 in the first innings gave him a match analysis of 16-119 - the best achieved in England since Jim Laker, also of Surrey, took 19 Australian wickets in the Test Match at Manchester in 1956. Bicknell became also the first bowler to achieve 50 wickets in the championship this summer.

The 47 runs put on for the seventh wicket by Vince Wells and Phil DeFreitas, who hit 24 in one ball less, alone provided any resistance. Bicknell dismissed both within three deliveries to catches by Butcher and Brown. With the last two wickets folding tamely Leicestershire were all out for 87. In contrast to that batting debacle the Surrey opening batsmen showed how placid for run-scoring the pitch could be, and they knocked off the runs without giving a chance. Butcher brought up the victory with a cover-drive four, one of eight boundaries in his innings.

Bicknell, who played club cricket for Guildford, said: "I love playing at Guildford, it's my home ground and I know a lot of people here. Playing this week every year is something I look forward to."

He has taken five-wickets in an innings three times this season - a feat he was not able to achieve once last year. Although he claimed to be doing nothing different this summer to the blast four or five seasons Martin was happy for the figures to speak for themselves. He recognised that chances had to be taken when they arose because otherwise Saqlain Mushtaq and Ian Salisbury would take the wickets, but he would gladly exchange this analysis for another championship.