RECORD TOTAL PUTS SURREY IN UNASSAILABLE POSITION by Marcus Hook
Surrey 598 v Gloucestershire 368 & 4-0

With day three being shorn of sixty overs, the only thing of which one can be certain is that Surrey will not lose this match. Whether they can win and lift themselves out of the relegation zone in Division One of the County Championship depends on Gloucestershire’s mindset – so far the wicket has been blameless – and the likely intervention at some point of rain.

Yesterday morning Alistair Brown added 39 to his overnight total. The 34-year-old finished with 170 off 234 balls, made in five and a half hours and including 24 boundaries. It represented his best innings in the championship since June 2002, and of the 33 first-class hundreds he has now made for Surrey, exactly a third have been converted into a score of 150 or more.

Indeed, a Brown century is something of a lucky omen for the Oval outfit. In the last seventeen matches in which he has reached three figures, they have gone on to win on fourteen occasions. Not since June 1997 have Surrey lost over four days when ‘The Lord’ has recorded a hundred.

Brown enjoyed fifty partnerships with Martin Bicknell and Ian Salisbury before cutting Alex Gidman to slip via the wicketkeeper’s gloves. The alliance with Bicknell – 59 in fifteen overs – was somewhat overshadowed by the home side’s seventh wicket stand of 53 in just nine overs, which included a straight six off Shabbir by Salisbury, who chopped James Averis on to his stumps in the very next over – the 107th.

Twenty-five overs were lost to rain after lunch, resulting in tea being taken early. When play did get underway once more, Tim Murtagh brought up the fifty partnership for the ninth wicket with an upper cut four off Lewis, then pulled Shabbir straight down the ground to post Surrey’s highest ever score in this fixture; however not before Jimmy Ormond was caught behind off an edged drive.

After taking three boundaries off Lewis, Nayan Doshi was bowled off his pads to draw a line under Surrey’s mammoth effort, which included more than fifty extras, as was the case in their first innings at Bristol two weeks ago. Jon Lewis, who took seven for 72 to win that match, finished with a disappointing two for 120 off 26.4 overs. In reality, only Shabbir Ahmed posed the Surrey batsmen any problems and was rewarded with two more wickets in what play was possible yesterday.

Needing 230 to avoid an innings defeat the Gloucestershire openers only had to face twelve balls, before the weather conveniently came to their aid, with Craig Spearman getting off a dreaded pair by driving the fourth delivery into the ground and straight back past umpire Trevor Jesty.

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