Surrey 183 and 298 for 8 dec (Foakes 120*) drew with Essex 279 (Elgar 113, Chahar 6-80)
The Colchester-born wicketkeeper-batsman walked out at the start of the fourth day with Surrey 51 for 4, still 45 runs behind Essex’s lead on first innings, and facing a fifth defeat of the season. But Foakes had other ideas and dug in with such grim determination and nous that he was still there nearly five hours later when handshakes were exchanged. He was unbeaten on 120 from 226 balls.
He received good support throughout the final day, in particular with stands of 52 for the seventh wicket with Adam Thomas and 104 for the eighth with Tom Lawes. Essex toiled in vain to make the breakthrough that might have led to their fifth win of the season.
There had been a point just before lunch when Leicestershire’s match at Scarborough was abandoned as a draw and Surrey dropped into the vacated ninth spot in Division One. Foakes made sure they did not stay there for long.
Surrey had made clear their intention to attempt to dig in and bat for as much of the day as possible. It looked a tall order. Foakes hit the first ball of the morning for four, but there was a period soon after where no runs were scored off the bat for 35 balls. Harmer conceded a single from his warm-up delivery, then churned out maiden after maiden before ending Josh Blake’s 70-ball stonewalling by inducing a rare rash shot for a caught behind.
Surrey were still four runs from making Essex bat again when they lost their sixth wicket, Mahipal Lomror nicking Jamie Porter through to the wicketkeeper. Like fellow seamer Sam Cook, Porter was achieving movement and lift off a still lively pitch and Thomas was welcomed with a ball that passed him at eye-level.
It took Surrey 47 overs to cancel Essex’s 96-run first-innings lead and that millstone removed their approach became slightly more expansive. Thomas’s aggression meant he scored at twice the rate of Foakes, who survived a caught-and-bowled chance to Harmer.
But just as Thomas got close to overtaking his senior partner’s score, and with whom he had put on 52 for the seventh wicket, he went to hook a short ball from Zaman Akhter and top-edged into Michael Pepper’s gloves.
When Foakes pulled Akhter through midwicket for his seventh boundary, he had faced 121 balls in reaching fifty. In Lawes he found another ally willing to keep the scoreboard ticking while taking minimal risks. Their 28-over stand ended when Cook beat Lawes for pace with the fourth delivery after tea.
Foakes’s century encompassed 205 balls and was celebrated soon after with a six over midwicket off Harmer, who was also hit on to the pavilion roof by Rahul Chahar.
Surrey have four games in September, starting against Yorkshire at the Oval on Wednesday, to attempt to pull further away from danger and preserve their status in the top division of the premier red-ball competition in the world, which they won four times in the last seven iterations.
