Rain constantly hampered the afternoon’s play at Guildford Cricket Club before the day was finally called off with Surrey in the positive position of 164 for two in the LV County Championship.

Mark Butcher won the toss and elected to bat first with Scott Newman and Jonathan Batty getting their side off to a very positive start bringing up fifty in the first hour. Remarkably, with one end having been under water less than a week ago, the pitch played brilliantly, and both Surrey openers made full use of the conditions to guide the ball through the gaps to the boundary.

Newman’s innings was sadly brought to an end, when former Surrey spinner Gareth Batty was introduced into the attack. The off spinner put a dramatic halt to Surrey’s scoring with figures of two for 16 from nine overs before the lunch break. The left handed Newman was bowled for 32, before Batty had his namesake caught just before the interval for a well worked 45.

Mark Ramprakash and Surrey’s captain saw their side safely into lunch without further loss and with the score on 112 for two. Upon resumption of play, there was only time for a short passage of play before the rain fell steadily to bring a halt to proceedings.

After a short delay, the umpires managed to get play underway again with Ramprakash and Butcher knocking the ball around in typical fashion to take Surrey up to 164 for two. However the rain then fell was more, forcing an early tea interval.

With no sign of the rain stopping at 5:30pm, the umpires had no choice but to call the day’s play to an early close, with Ramprakash and Butcher 32 and 37 not out respectively.

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