County Championship: Tom and Sam Curran in the wickets for Surrey
Anderson takes seven-for; Dent scores double ton for Gloucester
Friday 25 September 2015 11:38, UK
Tom and Sam Curran tore Northamptonshire apart at The Oval on Thursday as Surrey pushed for a victory that would seal the County Championship Division Two title.
Tom seized 7-35 and Sam chipped in with 3-46 as Northants were skittled for 110 in their first innings inside 30 overs, Josh Cobb (29not out) one of few Steelbacks batsmen to offer any resistance.
Tom Curran then dismissed Rob Newton for a duck after Surrey enforced the follow-on but the away side posted 223-1 by the close, Ben Duckett (116no) and Alex Wakely (93no) reducing the hosts' lead to just 77.
Sam Curran had earlier finished unbeaten on 61 in Surrey's 410 all out, the 17-year-old - named in the latest England Under-19 squad - adding 56 for the ninth wicket with skipper Gareth Batty (27).
Lancashire, who trailed Surrey by eight points heading into the final round of fixtures, dismissed Essex for 394 at Chelmsford before reaching 131-2 in response as rain brought an early end to play.
England seamer James Anderson snared the final three Essex wickets - James Foster (17), Graham, Napier (31) and Jamie Porter (7) - to finish with 7-77, his best figures in a Lancashire shirt.
Eighteen-year-old Haseeb Hameed (63) scored his second fifty in a row prior to picking out Alastair Cook at slip, with Ashwell Prince unbeaten on two in what is likely to be his final first-class knock.
Chris Dent, meanwhile, scored a career-best 268 for Gloucestershire as the newly-crowned One-Day Cup champions made a mammoth 558 in their opening innings against Glamorgan.
Gloucester slipped to 334-7 in Bristol but Dent and No 9 James Fuller (73) added 168 for the eighth wicket to help the hosts accrue a lead of 125, Dent's knock - which took him past 1,000 first-class runs for the season - ending after 347 balls when he was snaffled by Craig Meschede.
Glamorgan, though, had whittled Gloucester's advantage down to 37 runs by stumps, with Jacques Rudolph (56no) and James Kettleborough (31no) steering the Welsh outfit to 88-0.
Rock-bottom Leicestershire boosted their hopes of landing just a third County Championship victory of the season after eking out a 284-run lead over Derbyshire at the County Ground.
Mark Cosgrove (126no) and Aadil Ali (62) put on 144 following the Foxes' slump to 55-3 and the visitors battled to 307-7 by stumps with Lewis Hill (28) and Ben Raine (27) also contributing.
Mark Footitt and Wes Durston took three wickets each for the Falcons, who had bowlers Ben Cotton (43) and Tom Milnes (23) to thank for bumping them up to 352 in their first dig, but Wayne Madsen's men are now set to go through a season without a home win for the first time since 2005.
Head back to skysports.com on Friday as the County Championship season comes to a close.
