Reigning champions Surrey thumped Somerset by eight wickets inside three days to chalk up their first win of the Rothesay County Championship season at the fourth attempt.
Rory Burns’ side – who began the campaign with three straight draws – reduced Somerset to 39-7, including taking five wickets for four runs, as they bowled their opponents out for 119 at The Kia Oval on Sunday and then reached their victory target of 36 in 5.2 overs.
Surrey seamers Dan Worrall (3-16) and Jordan Clark (3-24) shared six second-innings wickets – Clarke ending the match with eight scalps after taking 5-68 on day one – as the visitors slipped seven down inside 19 overs and were in danger of an innings defeat.
Surrey’s Ollie Pope scored just two runs in the game, one in each innings
Migael Pretorious (54 off 45 balls) struck eight fours down the order to ensure Surrey would have to bat again and Somerset did pick up two wickets before being beaten, including removing England’s Ollie Pope for one for the second time in the game.
Pope was pinned lbw by Josh Davey having been bowled by Lewis Gregory a day earlier, while Dom Sibley (3) was caught off Kasey Aldridge, leaving Burns (20no off 20) and Jamie Smith (12no off 5) to clinch Surrey’s triumph.
Burns’ men have leapt to second in Division One and are 10 points behind table toppers Nottinghamshire, while Somerset are second bottom and ahead of only Worcestershire, who lost to Durham inside two days at New Road on Saturday.
Surrey’s England fast bowler Gus Atkinson bagged two wickets on day one at The Kia Oval
Farhan impresses for Notts before Duckett hits 23-ball fifty
Nottinghamshire drubbed a Sussex side who were previously in second spot by nine wickets at Trent Bridge, with 17-year-old off-spinner Farhan Ahmed and England batter Ben Duckett in the wickets and runs respectively on Sunday.
Farhan – the brother of England leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed – took two of the final three Sussex wickets to fall to end with figures of 4-54 and help bowl the visitors out for 278.
John Simpson (74) and Jack Carson (43) rallied Sussex from 167-7 as they put on 87 for the eighth wicket, leaving unbeaten Nottinghamshire chasing 148 for a second win in four matches.
The hosts reached that target in 25.5 overs thanks to Haseeb Hameed (62no) and the quick-scoring Duckett (59no off 31), with the latter rebounding from a first-innings nine to smoke a 23-ball half-century in his first match since England’s dismal Champions Trophy campaign ended in early March.
Hameed registered his second fifty of the game, putting his name forward as a contender to open with Duckett in Test cricket this summer if England lose faith in Zak Crawley.
Another option for England at the top of the order is Sussex’s Tom Haines, who scored 64 in the second innings against Nottinghamshire and sits top of the Division One run-scoring charts on 513, ahead of team-mate Simpson (463) and Hameed (443).
