Mark Butcher and Mark Ramprakash were just manoeuvring Surrey into a strong position on the opening day of the Guildford Festival when the rain that seems to be following Worcestershire everywhere they go put paid to 54 overs of action.

The toss went to the home side who favoured Chris Schofield's leg-spin to Jade Dernbach's nippy seam-up. With James Benning still recovering from injury, Richard Clinton retained his place as the extra batsman. For the visitors, Dewald Nel was given the nod ahead of Ray Price and Nadeem Malik, who had the rare distinction of accounting for Ramprakash twice in the match when the two sides met in what could well prove to be the last championship game to be staged at New Road this year.

Worcestershire's lack of cricket was underlined when Doug Bollinger overstepped five times in his first two overs. Scott Newman struck the day's opening boundary when he creamed Bollinger through point for four off the back foot. Four overs later, Jon Batty announced himself by cutting the Aussie left-armer to the boundary square on the off-side.

Nel's second over saw the Surrey stumper despatch him for two successive fours. Shortly afterwards, Newman drove both Nel and Kabir Ali on the up through cover. In the 22 over, however, Newman gave his wicket away when he advanced down the pitch to Gareth Batty and yorked himself.

Ramprakash cut Batty for four and, in the last over before lunch, eased Vikram Solanki to the mid-wicket boundary; though not before Jon Batty had perished for 45. The 33-year-old opener lofted a catch to Roger Sillence running back from cover and taking over right shoulder off the bowling of Gareth Batty; whose figures at the break read 9-3-16-2.

After the interval, Butcher cover drove Batty for four, hit Bollinger straight up the ground and cut Sillence another four; just before the first adjournment for rain.

Only a handful of overs were possible when the weather relented. Ramprakash brought up the 150 for the home side with a brilliant cover drive in the 48th over. In the next over, from Kabir, Butcher was particularly severe, smashing 14 off the over with successive boundaries - a delightful pull over square leg and a superb square drive.

The day's play was finally called off at 5.30pm, with Butcher and Ramprakash unbeaten on 37 and 32 respectively.

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