Openers get Surrey off to a flyer

Opening pair Scott Newman and Jonathan Batty gave Surrey a flying start before the weather intervened on the opening day of their game with Worcestershire.

Newman (65) and Batty (44) began fluently against some wayward seam bowling as the hosts racked up 132-0.

The scoring slowed down when Matt Mason and spinner Gareth Batty were brought into the attack by Vikram Solanki.

But the openers were still there when rain brought about a premature close after only 38.4 overs at The Oval.

Kabir Ali and Zaheer Khan failed to control a swinging new ball early on as Surrey moved to 57 without much bother from the first 18 overs.

Mason and Batty were much more accurate but Newman reached his half-century from 92 balls just before lunch.

He was unable to add significantly to that total as the rain closed in 3.4 overs after the break, and the umpires gave up shortly before 1700 BST.

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