Essex started brightly in their Frizzell County Championship division one game against Surrey at Chelmsford before the visitors batted their way back into the game.

Essex won the toss and elected to field on day one of the match and it soon appeared to be the correct choice.

At one stage Surrey were 51-5 but managed to recover with Graham Thorpe and Azhar Mahmood scoring 52 and 77 respectively.

Martin Bicknell was 79 not out in a Surrey score of 280-8 by 5pm today.

But Graham Napier was the star performer for Essex though claiming four wickets while giving up 69 runs.

Published Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Brought to you by the Evening Gazette