An unbeaten stand of 186 between Mark Butcher and Mark Ramprakash put Surrey in the driving seat at the close on Day One in the first LV County Championship match of the 2008 season.

Ramprakash continued his extraordinary run of form by completing his 98th first class century, doing so in style with a glorious pull shot off Oliver Newby. The Surrey maestro, who has scored over 4000 runs and averaged over 100 in the last two seasons, once again showed his class in front of a strong Brit Insurance Oval crowd that included Senior England selector, Geoff Miller.

A strong Lancashire bowling attack spearheaded by England all rounder, Andrew Flintoff, was completely snuffed by Butcher and Ramprakash’s partnership. The pair led a recovery after Jonathan Batty and Scott Newman fell in consecutive overs with the score on 56.

After heavy overnight rain, play eventually got going after an early lunch and Newman started the Surrey innings brightly with a flurry of nicely struck boundaries. He was well supported by Batty, who was starting to find his touch when he was trapped lbw to Newby. Flintoff picked up Newman in the following over, caught at long leg, leaving Surrey in trouble, but Surrey’s experienced three and four settled things down to take their side to 120 for two at tea.

The pair accelerated the scoring rate after the interval to both go past their half centuries. Ramprakash scored runs all around the ground, whilst a vintage Butcher showed his quality with some glorious front foot drives through the covers.

As Ramprakash continued to flow there was a certain inevitability about the outcome. The right-hander breezed through the 90s with two perfectly timed cut shots, before seizing on another short delivery to go to his century. Shortly after and with 12 and a half overs still remaining in the day the umpires took the players off the field for bad light bringing a premature end to proceedings.

The sides will resume play at the Brit Insurance Oval tomorrow, with Surrey looking to build upon their solid platform to post a large first innings total.

You can see highlights of today’s play on Surrey TV, by clicking here.

To see the scorecard from this match, click here.

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