Career-best figures for Meaker

Stuart Meaker celebrated his recall to the Surrey first team by taking career-best figures of 5 for 48 against Gloucestershire at The Oval on the third day of the County Championship Division Two match. Remarkably, it was the first five-for by a Surrey seamer at The Oval for four years. Stuart got his chance because fiery South African Andre Nel had been slapped with a two-match ban after another tantrum.

In the Daily Telegraph, Derek Pringle wrote: Blond and muscle bound, Meaker’s skiddy pace has certainly given his team a sniff of victory. His tactics, in only his 10th first-class appearance, were different, but then he is an eager 21 year-old. With the physique and strut of a scrum-half, he banged the ball in short at a fair lick and then, when he felt he had got the batsmen playing back, he fired it into the blockhole. Two lbws and two edged catches were testament to its success and, perhaps, for youthful zest over old saws.

In two recent matches for the 2nd XI Stuart excelled with both bat and ball. Against Middlesex at Radlett he took match figures of 12 for 156, including 7 for 99 in the second innings; a week later he hammered an unbeaten 150 off 199 balls against Somerset.

His return against Gloucestershire makes him only the second OC to take a first-class five-for. In 1927 Maurice McCanlis, who also played rugby for England, took 5 for 70 playing for Oxford University against Leicestershire and in the next match 5 for 45 against Harlequins. The first of his three five-fors came against Cambridge University in the 1926 Varsity match when he took 5 for 59.