Surrey’s overseas players, Matthew Nicholson and Harbhajan Singh, bowled superbly to run through the Worcestershire top order and give the home side a chance of victory on the last day at Guildford tomorrow.

Singh and Nicholson started the morning with the bat for Surrey ready to attain the fourth batting point. This was accomplished in the first over as Surrey went past 350 without any further loss. The pair put together a bright and breezy partnership before Singh was caught at slip off Gareth Batty. Shortly after Surrey were all out having posted a first innings score of 369.

Worcestershire got off to a terrible start in their innings when they lost their key batsman Phil Jaques for only three. Vikram Solanki, who scored a magnificent career best in this fixture earlier in the season, got off to a decent start with three boundaries, but soon became Nicholson’s second victim leaving Worcestershire 30 for two.

Wickets falling at regular intervals was the story for the visitors and attempts to get stuck into the Surrey score were continuously hampered. The early introduction of Singh proved to be a Mark Butcher masterstroke as he immediately struck to have Ben Smith caught at slip by Rikki Clarke. A couple of large shouts shortly before lunch were turned down and as such Worcestershire scraped into the break on 77 for three.

The post interval cricket was no different as Surrey’s overseas players struck twice to leave the Royals floundering on 98 for five. Some resistance was offered by former Surrey player Batty and the Worcestershire wicket keeper Steve Davies but Singh was not kept out of the game for long. With men surrounding the bat, a fine leg glance from Batty went only as far as Butcher, who happily collected the catch.

Neil Saker and Chris Schofield soon got in on the act, with the former picking up the wicket of Roger Sillence, clean bowled, with Worcestershire still 71 runs short of the follow on target of 219.

Kabir Ali hit some lusty shots to race to 21 and with Davies going very nicely at the other end, the visitors seemed as though they may get past the follow on. Nevertheless, this was not to be. Schofield trapped Ali lbw, and although Davies had gone past 50, Singh returned to have him brilliantly caught at slip by Clarke.

Nine wickets down Worcestershire still required nine runs and fell just three short when Schofield picked up his second scalp with the score on 217.

Butcher enforced the follow on and with just under two hours remaining in the day, Surrey would have been confident of making some good inroads. However after only a short period, umpires took the players off the field with the diminishing light offered to the batsmen. There was no further play possible and Worcestershire finished the day on 46 for no wicket.

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