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Surrey chased a near-record fourth-innings total of 501 against Kent in the County Championship today (June 14) as Dom Sibley, Jamie Smith and Ben Foakes all scored centuries.
You have to go back to 1925 to find an occasion where a side has chased more runs in the fourth innings of a Championship game. That summer, Middlesex managed to successfully overcome a target of 502 to beat Nottinghamshire, in a match which featured Harold Larwood. No one has managed to chase 500 since in the County Championship, and only six other sides have done so in First Class history.
However, Sibley’s unbeaten nine-hour behemoth ensured Surrey broke that near 100-year target. His century was the slowest Championship hundred in terms of balls faced (368) and minutes batted (502). By the end of his innings, he had faced 415 balls, scoring 140 runs in nine hours 40 minutes.
Batting second in Canterbury, Surrey had capitulated to 145 in their first innings and at one point were 60-7. In response, Kent scored over 300 in both of their innings, which included a century from Jordan Cox in the first, to put them well in front. After they were finally bowled out for the second time just before lunch on day three, Division One leaders Surrey faced a mammoth total of over 500 ahead of them.
There looked even slimmer hope of redemption when Rory Burns was out for four off the second ball of the chase. But, in his first game of the season for the South London outfit, Tom Latham set about building a partnership with Sibley which laid the foundations for what was to come. He hit half-century before getting out, which brought 22-year-old Smith to the crease.
With Sibley crawling along for his runs at the other end, Smith took all questions of time out of the game with a 70-ball century. On reaching fifty, he smashed Arshdeep Singh for four boundaries in one over including two sixes, and reached his hundred with a four off Joe Denly.
By the close of play on day three, Sibley had reached 61, having come in to bat at lunch time, while Foakes had begun his innings and was on 22. Smith’s century and Sibley’s stoicism meant that Surrey went into day four more than halfway towards their target, with seven wickets in hand.
The Sibley-Foakes partnership sustained Surrey’s chase well into the following day. Having come into bat two sessions after Sibley, Foakes was almost able to reach three figures before him. With Sibley on 98 off 367 balls and Foakes on 99 off 193 going into a new over, Sibley hit his 12th boundary of his innings to reach three figures.
It took him 502 minutes (eight hours 22 minutes) of batting to get there. In terms of balls faced, the next slowest is Joe Sayers, who took a full 38 balls fewer than Sibley to make three figures for Yorkshire against Leicestershire in 2005.
Foakes reached his century shortly after, coming at a more brisk 198 balls. He went on to score 124 before being dismissed by Denly with Surrey closing in on their target at 437-4 with a session still left in the game. There were no concerns about time, however, as Jordan Clark hit the winning runs at just after half past four to seal the chase’s place in the record books.
