Yesterday, Surrey did little to dispel the notion that they are too talented a side to be relegated to Division Two of the County Championship as their nightmarish season took another turn for the worse. They ended the day 225 for nine, which, as it turned out, represented something of a recovery after being put into bat for the first time since their visit to Worcester mid-way through last summer. The Ovalites could hardly blame the pitch or the fact that Warwickshire held all their chances, which they didn’t.

Having begun the day twenty-three points adrift of sixth in the table, Middlesex, the visitors knew that anything less than four batting points would probably leave them needing to win their last game of the season, which, like this contest, could well fall victim to the weather. However, Surrey never looked like getting four points. Indeed, shortly after tea they would have gladly settled for one, which they limped to when their number ten, Mohammad Akram, got off the mark with an uncontrolled swipe to third man.

After reaching 50 for one in the fourteenth over, the Oval outfit subsided to 128 for six. Warwickshire’s four-pronged seam attack shared the spoils until 22-year-old James Anyon proceeded to take three wickets for six runs in the space of fourteen balls when he held on to a return catch, low and to his left, off Jonathan Batty, had Alistair Brown walking into a ball that pitched on and straightened and then had Rikki Clarke holing out to deep square leg for a 59-ball top score of 63.

Earlier, Warwickshire included South Africa’s Makhaya Ntini in their line-up despite the fact that he needs to catch a plane tomorrow afternoon, while Surrey preferred Jade Dernbach over Nayan Doshi as their extra bowler.

When play eventually began at 2.00pm, following the loss of a day and 45 overs, Mark Butcher made a bright start for the visitors. Having struck hundreds in each of his previous two championship visits to Edgbaston, the Surrey captain drove Dougie Brown through extra cover for two successive fours in the first over from the Pavilion End.

In keeping with the Ovalites’ season, however, they were not on top for long, losing Scott Newman in the third over, to a ball that it would have been more sensible to duck underneath, and Butcher, who was also caught at first slip when he prodded forward to Brown eleven overs later.

Mark Ramprakash waited 43 deliveries before hitting his first boundary, which came gift-wrapped - Neil Carter drifting one too far and across the former Middlesex man. In fact, Carter’s opening spell of 5-0-45-1 was nothing but eventful. After being put away, dismissively, for two fours by Rikki Clarke, he got one to spit off a length to account for Ramprakash, who was caught at second slip. Four overs later Clarke hit the left-arm seamer straight up the ground, pulled him for four, top-edged a pull over the slips for six and clipped him to through backward point to record four boundaries in one over.

Clarke then passed fifty, off 38 balls, for the third time in four championship innings by cutting Carter for yet another four prior to being dropped at square leg, when 54.

Batty struggled through to tea, yet appeared to be growing in stature shortly after it when he departed, and Brown, as he is prone to doing, appeared to lose concentration at the wrong moment. But the biggest disappointment of all as far as the beleaguered former champions were concerned was the demise of Rikki Clarke, who, despite being fed a number of short balls, failed to get on top of any of them.

Surrey lost Azhar Mahmood for a breezy 24, when he skied a pull to short extra cover to make it 153 for seven. But then Tim Murtagh and Saqlain Mushtaq came to their side’s aid with an eighth wicket partnership of 44 in thirteen overs. Unfortunately, it never looked like lasting and Dougie Brown returned to have Murtagh caught at deep wide mid-off. With Saqlain swinging like the garden gate the total was dragged past the two-hundred mark. In the final over of the day, however, Akram lobbed a straightforward catch to extra cover.

As for the other chances that went begging, Butcher could have been caught at third slip off Ntini for 19; and Murtagh should have gone for four when he was dropped at mid-wicket off Brown. The visitors will not mind if Saqlain is allowed to chance his arm this morning, though, especially if it means he can somehow conjure up a second batting point.

Meanwhile, the search for Steve Rixon’s successor as Surrey’s head coach continues, though hardly apace. Word is, there is a very short shortlist with Alan Butcher’s name at the top of it.

Since Keith Medlycott is believed to have ruled out a return to The Oval, it was interesting that his name has been reported in the Birmingham Post as being one of the five currently in the frame for the job at Edgbaston next summer.

The other candidates, whom Surrey may wish to make contact with when Warwickshire have reached a decision in a few weeks time, are Mark Greatbatch, Andy Moles, Allan Donald and James Whitaker - in that order, if the local jungle drums are to be believed. Such has been the interest in the job, Terry Alderman, the former Australia seam bowler, has not even been granted an interview.

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