COUNTY cricketers are not renowned for the originality of their nicknames but “Cardinal” would not be a bad one for Scott Newman, and not only because of his name. Striding out to bat in the sort of form he is in, all 13st and 6ft 1in of him, it is not hard to imagine him clad from head to foot in red, a visible warning to bowlers to repent of their sins.

They were halfway to their knees yesterday by the time that he had added a racy 60 not out to the 321 runs he has already made in three championship matches this season.

Add to what are now five championship fifties, another half-century and a hundred against Durham University, and you have a fairly imposing start to Newman’s season, put into context only when you realise that Mark Ramprakash is more than halfway to 1,000 runs in the championship.

It is an immense advantage to bat regularly at The Brit Oval, where each of the 45 pitches that could be used for a net from one side of the ground to the other looks as though it only needs a mow and a roll to be better than most.

The snag is that with such reliable bounce, batsmen can get a little too free. One or two shots played by Newman in his unbroken opening partnership of 126 with Jon Batty would have been riskier elsewhere, notably the sliced drive over cover off Matt Mason and the savage flat-batted hit back over the bowler’s head that followed a leading edge landing just in front of extra cover. Of the 120 balls he faced before the rain, ten were hit for four, all with power and élan.

Batty also hit some fine shots against a ball that Kabir Ali, Zaheer Khan and Mason swung considerably, but this is a pitch that leaves no margin for bowling error.

No doubt it will be the same when Surrey stage a match between Pakistan and a World X1 on July 10 in aid of the Earthquake Relief Fund.