It was not to be the fairytale that everyone hoped for yesterday with Mark Ramprakash falling for just 17. However Surrey’s batsman worked hard to put together an above par score of 278 on a tricky wicket.

Surrey lost Jonathan Batty early which brought Ramprakash to the crease. He and Newman pushed Surrey’s score along to reach 50 and with the number three already on 17, many of the crowd thought that they would be watching the early stages of Ramprakash’s hundredth first class century. It was not to be as he was caught behind without adding to the score and with this the difficult nature of the pitch really became apparent. Scott Newman played fluently for 42 but he was bowled by Chris Tremlett, bringing Usman Afzaal to the crease to join his captain.

Afzaal continued his good run of form to strike the ball cleanly from ball one, whilst Butcher played solidly at the other end as the pair took Surrey into lunch with the score on 106.

Butcher started to find the gaps after the interval and as such develop a strong position for his side. The pair negotiated a hostile spell of bowling from James Tomlinson, but when he was replaced by the returning Tremlett, Hampshire had their breakthrough with Afzaal trapped lbw for 40.

The introduction of Ali Brown meant that Surrey’s momentum did not suffer. He quickly got his feet moving to play the seam and spin combination with ease. Nevertheless as per the trend of the day, the flourishing partnership was broken when Butcher attempted to repeat a cleanly struck six off the spin of Greg Lamb, only to be caught at mid wicket with the score 193 for five.

The resumption of play after tea saw Brown caught behind for 33 with Matthew Nicholson, his replacement joining Chris Jordan in the middle. Jordan showed his capabilities with the bat but some tight Hampshire bowling meant that scoring was not easy.

After losing Jordan and James Ormond in quick succession to the new ball, Nicholson sensed that he would have to score quick runs. Surrey’s overseas blazed a couple of boundaries to make an unbeaten 40, but ran out of partners as Saqlain Mushtaq and Pedro Collins went leaving Surrey 278 all out.

Hampshire had an awkward two overs to face at the end of the day but could not get through them unscathed as Ormond struck to have Michael Carberry caught behind for six with the home side 13 for one at the close.

Highlights of today's play are available on Surrey TV

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