Rehan Ahmed’s brother, Farhan, becomes youngest bowler to take five-for

It was on August 30, 1968 that Yorkshire finished their championship campaign — with victory over Surrey in Hull, as it happens — to be effectively assured a third consecutive title. Two distant rivals still had two games to play but the bonus-point regime that season required a near miracle of batting to overhaul them.
If Surrey ended the same day in Nottingham, 56 years later, hardly so impregnable, they still look like becoming the first side since to match that Yorkshire feat. This despite wonderful figures on championship debut for the 16-year-old Farhan Ahmed who returned seven for 140 when Sai Sudharsan was taken on the long-off boundary for 105 and Surrey, about to declare two balls later, were all out for 525.
It was the first hundred for the young India white-ball international in seven innings for the county but Ahmed’s effort, heart-warmingly encouraged throughout by a good Nottingham crowd, was the performance that could assume deep future resonance for England. At 16 years and 190 days, Ahmed — the younger brother of the England leg spinner Rehan, 20 — became the youngest bowler to claim a championship five-wicket bag.
And it is hard to believe that any bowler has completed as many as the off spinner’s 50.4 overs in his first go at this level. Though only a dozen players in history have been younger on their championship entry, it may prove some years before he can again boast as many wickets in an innings.
From 339 for five overnight, Surrey lost the hugely undersung stalwart all-rounder Jordan Clark for 53 just after missing a fourth batting point by two runs. Another misjudgment had Cam Steel run out for seven when, seeking a second run, he took on a superb throw from Ben Slater.
The last three fell to the indefatigable Ahmed after lunch and the reply unpromisingly began in the 30 minutes to tea with Slater out to the eight ball, a beautiful low full toss from Jordan that sped through his drive to hit the base of middle.
An Australian nursery rhyme has it that “kookaburra lives in the old gum tree”. County bowlers only wish Kookaburra balls would join it. On a day when sides passed 400 almost everywhere, Surrey now toiled in the sun with the experimental low-seam ball until Haseeb Hameed, leaving one that turned out of the rough, was bowled for 68 by Will Jacks, who also had the nightwatchman, Brett Hutton, with what became the final ball. Freddie McCann, a teenager in his third innings, resumes unbeaten on 69.
Somerset’s Archie Vaughan struck with only the sixth ball of his first-class career.
The 18-year-old son of the former England captain Michael Vaughan — who is making his first-class debut against Durham at Taunton and scored 30 runs on Thursday — grabbed a wicket in his first over of off spin by turning a delivery pitched on leg stump and pinning left-hander Ben McKinney leg-before for 15.
He got through 24 overs in total and ended the day with figures of one for 69 to help his side maintain their advantage, leading the visitors by 220 runs with only four more first-innings wickets to get.
It was a less productive day for another son of a former England star as Lancashire’s Rocky Flintoff was dismissed for a ten-ball duck against Hampshire at Old Trafford. The 16-year-old was caught off the bowling of 34-year-old Liam Dawson.