Rain delays Surrey's progress towards victory

Excellent bowling by Ian Salisbury for the second day, proved too difficult for Durham's batsmen to cope with on a pitch that gave generous turn. The Surrey leg-spinner finished with 7 for 105 which took his total number of wickets to 47 in the championship this season and brought him his third five-wicket haul.

His superb effort was, however, his second best in four-day matches this year after 8 for 60 against Somerset. Today he was well suported by Saqlain Mushtaq whose off-spin gave him 2 for 91 and the two of them bowled throuhgout the remainder of the Durham innings, for just under two hours.

Surrey were unable to get a breakthrough for an hour today when the Durham innings resumed but when Salisbury did find the way in, the two spinners took exactly an hour to bring an end to the innings.

A steady drizzle almost throughout the morning and early afternoon period had delayed the start of the third day's play at the Oval until 3pm.

During the forty minutes to tea, Durham had added 29 runs to their overnight score of 165 for six, against the double spin attack of Surrey. But Salisbury, having had two boundaries hit by Nicholas Phillips, a beautiful cover drive and a pull to wide mid-wicket - which led to the 200 of the innings - in his first over after the break, struck quickly in his next.

Andy Pratt, attempting a big hit to leg, was smartly stumped by Jonathan Batty and Durham were 205 for seven. Still finding help from this pitch for both his leg-spin and the occasional googly, as he did on the previous day, Salisbury soon picked up his sixth wicket, twenty runs later, when he had Neil Killeen judged leg before wicket.

Saqlain, bowling at the other end was difficult to score off. He was more accurate than on the second day, his seventeen overs in the innings today cost only 26 runs and brought him the penultimate wicket to fall. He had Phillips caught at forward short leg on 237 and after an addition of four runs Salisbury wrapped up the innings with a full toss that rapped Stephen Harmison on the pad.

When the rain, which followed poor light for most of the afternoon, finally brought an end to the curtailed day's play, Durham, who are already demoted to the second division for next season, were ten without loss in five overs, having followed-on 212 runs behind.

Surrey, in their bid to win the championship, need to win this match tomorrow to get the maximum points, having taken the eight available bonus points. Should the weather bring about a draw, the forecast not being very encouraging, it will help Lancashire considerably as they are in second position on the points table.