Reeve on a roll

MICHAEL AUSTIN reports from Edgbaston

MICHAEL AUSTIN

reports from Edgbaston

Warwickshire 470

Surrey 168-5

Captain Catalyst, alias Dermot Reeve, was at it again yesterday, fervently aided and abetted by Allan Donald, who dismissed Alec Stewart and Graham Thorpe, the Surrey Test pair, in three balls.

From being in suspended animation, the game lurched the now familiar Warwickshire way on a dry pitch, becoming dusty with increasing potential for the spinners.

Reeve, the irritant to bowlers and the splitter of partnerships, had done both. His latter role, when having Martin Bicknell leg-before, prised open the Surrey innings, which had stood at 90 without loss in 40 overs.

Needing 321 to avoid following on, Surrey advanced with extreme caution, deeply suspicious of collapsing against Donald, who still took three for 42. Warwickshire, put in, batted until 2.20pm on day two. Fine tactics, but a shame about their scoring tempo. Dominic Ostler had attained a career- best 208 from 340 balls, with 34 fours and two sixes, but the still life of their lower order was reproduced on Surrey's own canvas.

Reeve faced 177 balls in reaching a half-century and the game had two meandering sessions. They are the prerequisite of some four-day matches falling into an abyss, based on playing the other team out of contention, run by run, or on fear of being humbled.

Insert the opposition in haste, repent at leisure with a dead bat. Surrey and Stewart had done just that leaving the crowd just dead beat, not simply through sunstroke. It was just about all the strokes, because Mark Butcher spent 13 overs on three before his half-century from 153 balls.

Donald's burst came after Reeve withdrew from the attack after two overs. The South African prompted Stewart to jab late and be bowled by a skidding delivery, while Thorpe was taken off an inside edge by the wicketkeeper, Michael Burns.

This left Butcher to show his adhesive qualities and Alistair Brown to curb his attacking instincts, but when Brown played on to Gladstone Small and Butcher edged a low catch, Surrey still had much to contemplate.