Surrey succumb to Anderson onslaught

While Darren Gough and Chris Silverwood were pushing their cases for international duty this summer as Yorkshire crushed Northampton by an innings and 344 runs at Headingley, England's most promising young quick bowler, James Anderson, who made his mark in the World Cup, was making light work of Surrey's batting line-up at The Oval.

Anderson took the first five wickets as Lancashire forced the champions to follow on for the first time since 1998. Surrey's reply to Lancashire's first innings 599 lasted exactly two sessions of the third day and amounted to only 280. The outlook failed to improve for Surrey in an evening session depleted by bad light and rain, and they closed on 61 for 2 – still trailing by 258 but with fair prospects of saving the game on a pitch which has been made for batting.

Anderson (5 for 61) produced wicket balls to account for Jon Batty and Ally Brown, but was gifted his other three first-innings successes by the top-order batsmen Ian Ward (49), Mark Ramprakash (50) and Graham Thorpe (15).

Elsewhere in the First Division, Essex compiled a first-innings lead of 188 over Middlesex at Chelmsford only for the visitors to knock off the runs and build their own lead of 63 for the loss of four wickets by close of play. Sven Koenig led the fightback with a gritty 94.