What price Surrey now? Yesterday the pre-season favourites for the County Championship uncharacteristically succumbed to the mental pressure of needing to make 450 to avoid the follow-on – not to mention a fine exhibition of fast bowling from England’s ‘find’ of last winter, Jimmy Anderson. Anderson finished with first innings figures of five for 61 and will be the man Surrey must resist today if they are going to prevent Lancashire from taking an early lead in the championship race.

Talk of marathons instead of sprints will have a hollow ring about it if Surrey bat as poorly again second time around. A combination of batsmen losing their heads and Jimmy Anderson slicing the top off the Surrey order was largely responsible for the way the home side got themselves into trouble, but with Chris Schofield mopping up the tail his part in Surrey’s demise cannot be underestimated.

The Oval outfit follow on so rarely – this is the first time in nearly five years, when they lost the last match of the season and with it the County Championship to Leicestershire in 1998.

Needing 319 to make Lancashire bat again, they did little to redeem themselves in the 12.2 overs that were possible before bad light and rain brought an early end to day three. Jonathan Batty cut the first ball of the fourth over hard to gully’s left and six overs later Mark Ramprakash was caught behind for the second time in a day to leave the home side at 48 for 2 and with a mountain to climb.

With the sunshine returning to the AMP Oval, plus a little of the warmth of Good Friday, the day had actually started reasonably well for Surrey and their supporters, apart from when Batty had his off stump uprooted by a yorker in the ninth over.

Ward and Ramprakash were in apparent comfort during a partnership worth 71 in 89 minutes. The left-hander brought up the fifty with a beautifully executed on drive off Kyle Hogg and Ramprakash got into his stride with successive fours off Andy Flintoff seven overs later. But the last ball of the 31st over saw Ian Ward being caught in front of first slip, where he had been given a let off by Chilton two overs earlier.

Undeterred, Mark Ramprakash went to his fifty with a six over long leg off the bowling of Jimmy Anderson two balls before lunch. In the second over after the break, however, without adding further to his score, the former Middlesex man fell to the 20-year-old, attempting to force him off the back foot.

That left Surrey needing Graham Thorpe and Alistair Brown to make maiden hundreds against Lancashire. Anderson had other ideas, though, and his next two overs saw the back of both – Brown shouldering arms and Thorpe falling to a well-judged catch by Mal Loye at long leg.

Rikki Clarke and Adam Hollioake then added 64 in twelve overs before the Surrey captain went to pull Glen Chapple and gloved the ball high and, on first appearances, behind first slip. But Flintoff just made up the necessary ground and pulled off a spectacular one-handed catch.

All the while Schofield had suggested that when Harbhajan Singh does eventually join Lancashire they will have a viable spin threat to add to the seam attack that is already in place. Although Clarke hit the leg-spinner for three fours in four balls – all of them in front of the wicket – his next over, the 54th, left the home side in an even bigger mess.

Alex Tudor was out driving to the straighter of two extra cover fieldsmen. Then, just three balls later, Rikki Clarke caused a repeat of the dismissal when he too was caught by Mark Chilton, this time at short cover, off a leading edge.

Salisbury and Saqlain, better known for operating in tandem with the ball, then offered thirteen overs of resistance before Ian Salisbury was caught down the leg side off Andy Flintoff. Bearing in mind that he had been struck on the right index finger the previous ball, the former England leg-spinner looked far from pleased to go, but umpire Holder said he had to and that was that.

Saqlain Mushtaq, obviously deciding the follow-on was unavoidable, then struck three successive fours off Chris Schofield before skying a catch to extra cover to bring the curtain down on Surrey’s initial and less than flattering effort.

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