With seven wickets remaining, Surrey will need to make a further 127 runs this morning to register their sixth championship win of the campaign and to render it even more likely that Yorkshire will be relegated to Division Two at the end of the season.

There is nothing to beat a swelteringly hot day unless, that is, you are a bowler and the wicket is improving with every over. Surrey took almost five hours longer to dismiss the visitors second time around and the pitch looked just as listless after Ward and Batty had seen off the new ball, despite the loss of Ramprakash and Shahid in the last 25 minutes.

With over four sessions in which to make the winning runs Ian Ward, who changed his bat twice (after three balls and 14 overs), followed up his heroic century against Kent with an unbeaten 67. The Surrey southpaw struck 13 high-class boundaries, including two in one over from Sidebottom to bring up his half-century in 93 deliveries.

Considering the swiftness of the outfield, the Yorkshire attack bowled significantly better than they had in the first innings; as if the thought of relegation is a fate they would make every possible sacrifice to circumvent.

Ryan Sidebottom was the cream of the crop once again, especially after tea when he had Jonathan Batty shouldering arms to a ball that nipped back. Only Ward managed to take a boundary off Chris Silverwood, who captured the wicket of Mark Ramprakash with a short delivery which skidded through twelve overs later. Furthermore Richard Dawson outshone Saqlain Mushtaq, accounting for Nadeem Shahid off bat and pad with one that turned and lifted.

The loss of Darren Lehmann, lbw in the fifth over of the day when the Yorkshire captain, prodding forward, appeared to get an inside edge, was not as catastrophic for the visitors as it could have been thanks to Michael Lumb. The big left-hander, who struck a career best 124 off 196 balls, looked immovable and is worthy of the praise currently being heaped upon him.

In the 85th over the 22-year-old became the first batsman to reach three-figures in the match when he pushed his 157th delivery, bowled by Saqlain Mushtaq, to cover. He had batted for 195 minutes and struck 17 boundaries, mainly in the ‘V’ and behind square on the off-side.

Lumb’s four-hour vigil was finally ended when he was taken off bat and pad in Ian Salisbury’s first over of the day, which began at 1:08pm.

After lunch Richard Blakey garnered a further eighty runs with the assistance of the Yorkshire tail. He lost Dawson and Silverwood through edges to slip and Sidebottom playing on, before reaching his half-century off 90 balls. In the very next over the 35-year-old keeper presented Rikki Clarke with his fifth wicket of the match, Ali Brown with his third catch in fourteen overs and Surrey with a target of 237 to win.

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