When the County Championship was split into two Divisions, many predicted that before long an elite group would form the nucleus of the top flight. This was borne out at the end of last season all of the sides promoted from Division Two in 2000 went straight back down again. On yesterday’s showing, however, Surrey - who were crowned county champions in 1999 and 2000 - belong in a division all their own. After bowling out the current champions Yorkshire for 140, they had knocked off all but 25 of the target for a first innings lead by the close and without losing a wicket.

It said everything of the pitch that it has been nearly two years since Surrey won the toss in the championship and chose to bowl first. The visitors certainly made better use of the surface than they did on that occasion against Durham at the Riverside. Unchanged from the side that beat Sussex on Monday, it took them little more than two sessions to polish their opponents off.

With the ball coming through at an unpredictable height, Yorkshire’s batsmen clung to survival. Scott Richardson laboured an hour and a half over for 16. But for Matthew Wood the end came rather earlier - in the sixth over - when an edge off Alex Tudor flew to Bicknell, who held a spectacular one-handed catch at fourth slip.

The 24-year-old fast bowler, operating from the Kirkstall Lane End, was the pick of the Surrey bowlers once again. He finished with four for 31. His two spells before lunch amounted to figures of 11-5-18-2, which also included the wicket of Yorkshire’s top scorer Michael Lumb - caught off a skied pull by Alec Stewart.

The Tykes’ reluctant captain, Darren Lehmann was the next to go, snapped up at square leg for his lowest ever championship score against Surrey to hand Martin Bicknell the 900th wicket of his remarkable first-class career.

Bicknell was also involved three overs later when he claimed his second catch of the day off Tudor to see the back of Chris Taylor. It says everything of Mark Butcher’s attacking style of captaincy that persists with a fourth slip - an area through which unintended boundaries often seem to fly.

Taylor was soon joined in the dressing room by Gavin Hamilton - who was leg before without scoring in the 46th over - as the home side slumped to 80 for six.

Yorkshire’s vice-captain Richard Blakey went on the attack initially, but when he lost Gary Fellows in the 53rd over - Martin Bicknell’s 19th - he chose instead to rally the the tail which held on for an hour and a half thanks to two dropped catches and a wicket off a no-ball. The unfortunate Azhar Mahmood still managed to post figures of three for 33, though.

When their turn came to bat, Mark Butcher and Ian Ward made things look ridiculously easy. They brought the fifty partnership up in the seventh over and were half way towards their opponents’ total by the end of the nineteenth.

Butcher rode his luck initially before settling down, but Ward looked every inch a Test-class batsman again as he stroked four boundaries through the cover region, including one to bring up the hundred partnership and another for his first half-century of the summer. Mark Butcher reached his second of the campaign two balls later.

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