Ten months into his Surrey career and having suffered early-season niggles and lapses in confidence, left-arm seamer Mark Footitt finally announced his arrival at the Kia Oval with a career-best haul of seven for 62 to wrap up Surrey's 10-wicket win over Lancashire.

Footitt mopped up Lancashire's two remaining wickets within 40 minutes of the fourth and final day to set up his side's fourth win of the Specsavers County Championship campaign.

Home openers Rory Burns (28*) and Dominic Sibley (11*) duly knocked off the 38 runs required within 9.1 overs to secure the comfortable and deserved victory with more than two sessions of the game to spare.

By hitting the winning boundary with a reverse sweep Burns also marked his 26th birthday by scoring his 1,000th championship run of the season.

Earlier, Surrey's attack required only 15 deliveries of the final day to dislodge Lancashire's ninth man in the shape of Nathan Buck. Prodding off the back foot at another testing delivery from Footitt, the right-hander followed and nicked to second slip where birthday boy Burns took a comfortable catch.

Lancashire's last pairing of Simon Kerrigan and Kyle Jarvis extended their side's narrow overall lead to 37 before Footitt, the former Derbyshire stalwart, had Kyle Jarvis caught on the drive at mid-off to wrap up the Lancashire innings for 230.

While Footitt secured his career-best from the Pavilion End, Batty reeled off 27 overs at the Vauxhall End to finish with excellent figures of two for 67, having virtually locked down the run-scoring from one end.

Lancashire travelled home with 4pts while Surrey boosted their late title challenge with a haul of 23 having secured their third win in four championship starts.

The victorious Surrey skipper Gareth Batty said: "We started the game on the front foot and finished the game on the front with the boys knocking the runs off today.I thought it was a pretty complete performance. The pitch had been slightly damp the day before the game so it was actually a good toss to lose. It didn't do a lot but the ball carried a fraction more from the green areas with it being slightly damp.

"No matter what the conditions though you've still got to bowl well to take 20 wickets and I thought the boys bowled magnificently. The Curran brothers held the game in a couple of beautiful spells, Sam ended up with the wickets but they bowled magnificently in a partnership. We're starting to play as a team where individuals know their roles which is very exciting."

In praise of Mark Footitt's seven for 62 match-winning return, Batty said: "He bowled brilliantly. People forget he has moved club's and moving to a big club like Surrey can be hard. He's bowling on different surfaces too and he's adapted quite magnificently here. He deserved is even for having bowled well plenty of times already this season without having much luck."

Lancashire's second innings top scorer Alviro Petersen said: "We have to draw a line under it, but I think we can take a lot of experiences from this. When you are behind a game, it's difficult to come back, especially if the opposition don't allow you to. We could have played better, but it wasn't to be.

"Yesterday, I thought we had an opportunity to claw our way back into the game, but we lost too many wickets. It could have been much different had, say, we had six wickets in hand today. We could have put a decent lead on, put them under pressure and perhaps won the game. It just shows that the margins in first-class cricket are quite small.

"Another win or two will change the whole season for us. When we started by winning those games up front, we were flying. But We certainly need another win to stay up. If we lose one or two more games, we are struggling. There's still so much to play for."

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