Cricket: Hooper helps Kent hijack: Rob Steen reports from Guildford

Surrey 301-8 dec and 76; Kent 117 and 332. Kent win by 72 runs

HELD UP by a lyrical 131 from Carl Hooper and subsequently derailed in mid-chase, Surrey failed to reach their destination here yesterday, Kent hijacking an improbable victory as the hosts, tootling along merrily on 53 for 1 at one juncture, shed their last nine wickets for 23. It was not so much murder on the Orient Express as a mugging on the Guildford commuter special.

Requiring a seemingly piffling 149 from what became 44 overs, Surrey initially appeared more perturbed by the jibes emanating from Martin McCague's blue-rinsed tonsils than any legitimate tactics. Visibly riled, Alec Stewart duly hooked his verbal assailant down long-leg's throat, the saunter slowing to a crawl when Graham Thorpe and Darren Bicknell were evicted in successive overs.

Matthew Fleming defied gravity, not to say belief, to snare Jonathan Robinson at extra cover, Richard Ellison striking again in his next over when Neil Sargeant was trapped bang in front of his stumps. This brought in David Ward and his broken thumb, but the would-be hero soon drove McCague to cover, wherupon Joey Benjamin, somewhat oddly, elected to sacrifice Monte Lynch, the last accredited batsman, when the pair squabbled over a single.

Benjamin failed to profit, Alan Igglesden squeezing through a yorker, then plucking out Tony Murphy's middle peg with another to seal a breathless climax with 6.4 overs remaining.

None of this would have been possible, of course, but for Hooper's memorable contribution. When Kent resumed on 145 for 2, 40 shy of making Surrey bat again, he followed the gung-ho trail blazed by Trevor Ward the previous evening, grasping the initiative and never letting go.

After caressing the day's first ball through extra cover, Hooper greeted Murphy by shimmying down the track and scattering the Thermoses at long-off, then propelled a second six over deep extra two balls later to clear the deficit. When Robinson entered the firing line, his opening salvo was pulled dismissively into the trees.

There were a few edges, notably off the excellent Martin Bicknell, but for the most part Hooper reigned with a regal air, grace personified amid the danger. Responsible for more than 70 per cent of the Kent output during his three-and-a-half-hour, 157-ball tenancy, it took a brute of a delivery to shift him, Bicknell persuading one to rear from just short of a length, the ball looping to backward point in a mournful parabola.

Ealham resisted for 89 minutes, but the remainder of the Kent bats were rather more crooked, Bicknell finally extinguishing the fire with the new ball to swell his bag to 23 wickets in the last three games. The call to national colours may not be far away.