With Surrey batsmen managing to get themselves out at regular intervals after Mark Ramprakash and Mark Butcher had put on 95 for the third wicket, the Brown Caps ended day two at Bristol facing the very real prospect of being asked to follow-on. The visitors are currently 172 runs adrift of Gloucestershire, who added 74 to their overnight total thanks to a career best 53 from James Averis and a half-century from stand-in skipper Alex Gidman. The eighth wicket pair shared in a stand worth 69 that could ultimately prove pivotal to outcome of this fascinating contest.

Needing 310 to avoid following on, Surrey lost Jonathan Batty in Averis's second over to a catch in front of first slip. But there seemed to be no further cause for concern as Newman and Ramprakash progressed the visitors' score to 88.

Scott Newman reached a thousand championship runs for the season with a cover driven for four off Averis, but then, driving loosely, was bowled off his pads. Ramprakash with 75 in 135 deliveries and Butcher 64 off 129 balls, both batted as if on course to record well-fashioned hundreds.

Ramprakash, who has not been dismissed for less than twelve in the season's County Championship, hit ten fours on his way to an 83-ball half-century before launching Vikram Banerjee straight down the ground for six. However, just before tea, the country's leading run-scorer was surprisingly undone by a ball of full length from Gidman.

After the break Alistair Brown was out hooking to long leg. Butcher reached his fifty with a cover driven four off Averis, but lost both Stewart Walters, who was caught behind off a bottom edge, and Azhar Mahmood, who chopped on, to the pick of the home side's attack, Steve Kirby.

Half an hour later the Brown Caps' skipper had a rush of blood and was bowled in the process of trying to sweep Banerjee. Chris Schofield was stumped trying to clip the young slow left-armer through mid-on. Although Nayan Doshi managed to hit Banerjee for six, Neil Saker was out cutting Mark Hardinges, with feet planted, to point.

Earlier in the day Averis resumed his innings by hitting Saker for five fours in two overs. The ??-year-old seamer, who is hoping for an extension to his current contract, then launched Doshi over long-on for six to post his maiden championship fifty in just 70 deliveries. Gidman, took the prudent approach, but recorded a second successive thousand first-class run season when he reached 38.

Surrey's spinners shared seven of the ten wickets to fall in Gloucestershire's innings. Doshi, who finished with 4-117, eventually had Averis caught behind. Gidman was lbw attempting to reverse sweep Schofield, who immediately cleaned up Banerjee with a yorker.

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