At 12.30pm, under a leaden sky, Martin van Jaarsveld saw Kent to four-wicket victory over Surrey that was ultimately achieved with minimum of fuss. The South African flicked Saqlain Mushtaq to fine leg to finish with an unbeaten 115 off 157 balls - his fourth hundred against the Brown Caps and the second time the 34-year-old has made centuries in both innings for the hop county.

If Surrey were going to score their first championship win of the season they needed to get rid of van Jaarsveld or Geraint Jones early on. Saqlain Mushtaq and Abdul Razzaq, making his final appearance for the Brown Caps, bowled in tandem for the opening 40 minutes, but without seriously troubling the sixth wicket pair.

Following a prompt start, Jones pulled Razzaq for four in the fourth over of the day then flicked the Pakistan all-rounder's next ball to the fine leg boundary. Six overs later the former England keeper repeated the stroke to take his side to 196-5. In the following over van Jaarsveld flicked Saqlain past Alistair Brown at leg-slip for four to bring up the 200.

The introduction of Usman Afzaal's left-arm spin could not stem the flow of singles. Jones swept Saqlain fine for four in the 56th over and three overs later van Jaarsveld despatched Afzaal to the cover boundary.

But then, in the 61st over, Jade Dernbach made the yearned for breakthrough with his third delivery when Jones, driving, was caught by the lone slip, Brown, for a 91-ball 39.

Dernbach nearly struck again when Yasir Arafat, on three, was put down by Razzaq at mid-off. With rain threatening, Arafat decided he had luck on his side and cover drove Saqlain for two fours in the 64th over; though not before van Jaarsveld moved to his hundred with an on driven four off Dernbach.

It was the third time in a first-class match involving Surrey that they were opposed by someone making two hundreds and taking five wickets. The first was J.A.Newman for Hampshire at the Oval in 1907 and the most recent one was J.H.Human for Cambridge University, also at the Oval, in 1933.

After the match, which, just over 24 hours earlier, seemed to be the Brown Caps' for the taking, their manager Alan Butcher criticised what he felt was another below par second innings batting performance from the Oval outfit. He said: "We spoke before about that innings and we knew we could either set the game up or cock it up. I don't think we've batted well for a couple of years now as a side."

But Butcher refuted the suggestion that the captaincy, not to mention being stuck on 99 first-class hundreds, was affecting Mark Ramprakash's batting, on which so much has rested of late as far as Surrey have been concerned. Butcher did, however, confirm that Matt Nicholson would be the Brown Caps' overseas player for what remains of the 2008 campaign.

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