County Championship: Surrey's Pope stars in run riot v Glamorgan

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Ollie PopeImage source, Getty Images
Image caption,

Ollie Pope has played 20 Tests for England

County Championship: Surrey v Glamorgan v Gloucestershire

Glamorgan 672-6 dec: C Cooke 205*, Lloyd 121, Carlson 69, J Cooke 68, Douthwaite 59; Virdi 3-140

Surrey 722-4 dec: Pope 274, Amla 168, Smith 138, Patel 62, Foakes 53*

Surrey (13 pts) drew with Glamorgan (13 pts)

Surrey's England batter Ollie Pope hit a sparkling career-best 274 as they piled up 722-4 against Glamorgan on a day of runs and records.

South Africa's Hashim Amla made 163 in a stand of 362.

It was the highest total and a third-wicket record for Surrey against Glamorgan

The match was a bizarre conclusion to the season with all 10 wickets falling to spinners on a flat pitch under sunny skies.

Surrey finish fifth in Division Two of the Championship with Glamorgan in sixth, effectively 11th and 12th respectively in the overall rankings.

Pope, aged 23 and captaining Surrey for the first time, cashed in on the conditions with some beautiful straight drives among his 35 fours and a six in the season's top score in the Championship.

He took his season's average on his home ground into three figures as Surrey pummelled the visitors' hapless attack, not helped by a series of dropped chances.

Amla was finally caught off Kiran Carlson just six short of his 1,000 first-class runs for the campaign, while a tired shot from Pope saw him bowled to provide Hamish Rutherford with his maiden first-class wicket.

The retiring Surrey all-rounder Rikki Clarke was given a guard of honour when he came out after the tea interval, and batted through a gentle session to finish on 12 not out as Ben Foakes reached a half-century at the other end.

Wicket-keeper Chris Cooke became the 11th bowler used, taking the new ball alongside Carlson in light-hearted scenes as bowler Michael Hogan kept wicket.

On a sun-kissed day, the only issue was the number of individual or team records to be broken, with Pope becoming the fifth player to set a personal best following Jamie Smith, Chris Cooke, David Lloyd and Joe Cooke.

Surrey captain Ollie Pope said:

"When we were bowling 177 overs and getting only six wickets I began to think I wasn't being very good at leading the side! But it was a pretty lifeless pitch and everyone put in a lot of hard yards out there.

"It would have been nice to get to 300 but if I was going to do it I wanted to do it in style and unfortunately I missed one and was bowled trying to hit a big shot.

"The nature of the wicket meant it wasn't the most challenging of conditions to bat on, but I always enjoy batting with Hashim [Amla], and playing on this type of pitch does mean you have to challenge yourself to stay switched on for as long as you can.

"It was a great honour for me to captain Surrey in this match and it was good to be able to send Rikki Clarke off into retirement in that manner, with both sides acknowledging what he has done in cricket, it's great for younger lads like myself to see the pride he has in representing Surrey."

Glamorgan coach Matthew Maynard told BBC Sport Wales:

"I had a chat with (Surrey coach) Vikram Solanki and he said they would have done the same, you think the wicket is going to deteriorate so you try to bat once to give yourself a chance.

"It didn't break up though Callum Taylor looked our most threatening off-spinner, though it was very hard with no wicket for a seamer in the four days on both sides.

"The groundsman is trying to produce a wicket that will offer (help) and will deteriorate, Lee (Fortis) has made some belting wickets but you need some X-factor (bowling) with reverse swing or mystery spin.

"Michael Hogan was the best seamer in the game, beat the bat more than any other seamer and showed his enduring class so I'm glad he's with us again next year."

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