Mark Butcher’s week may not have begun well, following a tabloid article about his private life appearing in a Sunday newspaper, but by the end of it Surrey had two more important victories under their belt and the England number three had 338 more runs to his name from three truly outstanding knocks. The third was his first century in one-day cricket for Surrey. Butcher is yet to play a one-day international. Perhaps the England selectors will look at the 104 off 107 balls he made yesterday and take note.

Had it not been for a groin injury to Ian Ward, the Surrey opener would probably not have played in his first one-day league game for two years or shared in a second-wicket stand of 158 with Mark Ramprakash, which, surprisingly, was not a record for this encounter. Thanks to their partnership of 160 at Scarborough in 1994, Alistair Brown and Graham Thorpe still hold that distinction. Both played yesterday, but made just four runs between them.

In reply to Yorkshire’s 199 all out, Brown was out in the second over when his attempted cut flew off an inside edge and was well taken low down by the wicketkeeper. But that paved the way for Butcher’s savagery against anything wide of off stump and a well-paced contribution of sixty from Ramprakash as Surrey polished off the target with nearly seven overs to spare and stretched their lead at the top of the NCL Division One table to six points in the process.

Yorkshire were convinced that Mark Butcher had been caught behind off Ryan Sidebottom for 32, but umpire Ian Gould disagreed and for a while things got a bit spicy. Mark Ramprakash was far from pleased when Tim Bresnan attempted to throw down the timbers off his own bowling even though the former Middlesex man had not ventured from the crease and, significantly, was shielding all three stumps.

Butcher, who struck sixteen fours, eventually picked out short extra cover. By that time, however, the Lions needed just 34 to win with over twelve overs remaining and Craig White lost to the Yorkshire attack. The all-rounder, whose season has been plagued by injury, had to withdraw with a side strain after attempting to bounce Surrey’s top scorer.

The glue that held Yorkshire’s modest total together as best it could was provided by another left-hander, Stephen Fleming, who made a superb 90 from 107 balls. The former captain of New Zealand announced himself with two pulled fours in Jimmy Ormond’s first over, but with wickets falling regularly at the other end fought a lone battle.

Fleming lost his opening partner, Matthew Wood, to the first ball of the match, which also gave Martin Bicknell his 234th one-day league wicket to equal the club record also held by Robin Jackman. After the crucial dismissal of Yuvraj Singh, who gloved Ormond to Jonathan Batty seven overs later, Saqlain Mushtaq and Ian Salisbury pecked away at the middle order before Hollioake rounded the innings off with three wickets in five balls.

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