Lancashire enhance position

DAVID LLEWELLYN

reports from The Oval

Surrey 221; Lancashire 343-5

There is little danger of the wheels coming off Lancashire's Championship challenge, judging by yesterday's display of cautious, but telling, driving against a weakened Surrey attack. They may not be in pole position but they are closing in on the leaders. By the time poor visibility drove them off for the night, they were well on top.

If their progress during the day was slow, it never took a wrong turn. There was a slight misfire when Jason Gallian edged his way into the 90s. For 57 minutes he stuttered and stalled, but eventually he kicked down on the throttle for his second first-class hundred of the summer.

Lancashire had just overtaken Surrey's inadequate first innings when Gallian crashed. The dismissal was as surprising, given the care and attention he had shown, as the perpetrator of it. Graham Thorpe - one of six bowlers used in the day - has been making a name for himself as a batsman, but yesterday he demonstrated a fair degree of guile and accuracy with some medium swing bowling. Gallian only got the thinnest of edges to present Neil Sargeant with one of four catches in the day.

Gallian, no doubt with half a mind on winter tour selection meetings this weekend as well as Lancashire's desire for glory, looked stunned after more than five hours in the driving seat and 14 beautifully struck boundaries to his credit, but he had done his bit. Nick Speak and Mike Atherton piled in with a 119-run stand and it promises to be as relentless today.

It is as well for Lancashire, though, that they managed to bowl out Surrey so cheaply first time around, because yesterday their ambitions suffered a slight dent with the news that their Pakistani fast bowler, Wasim Akram, is wanted by his country for the home Test series against Sri Lanka which gets under way next week.

Wasim is suffering from a shoulder injury and is out of this match, but his loss will be keenly felt when Lancashire come up against Kent and Derbyshire in their final two Championship matches.

Surrey know how their opponents feel, having lost the services of their 17-year-old fast bowler, Alex Tudor, probably for the rest of the match, which explained the introduction of Thorpe.

However, the regular bowlers did Surrey proud. Martin Bicknell has pounded in for 29 overs on a generally unsympathetic wicket, while Carl Rackemann is unafraid of hard work and will have derived much pleasure in bowling Nick Speak to lift his team-mates at the end of a long day on a hard road.