Newman rescues Surrey before bowlers bite back

SURREY 220 DURHAM 44-3

Scott Newman's timing could not have been better. He chose yesterday to score his first hundred for Surrey since April 2007. And it was just as well because without his runs Surrey would have been in a terrible state.

As it was the comings, and more tellingly the frequent goings, of Newman's team-mates left them with their lowest score on this ground for nine years, but fortunes changed when it was Durham's turn to bat on what appeared to be a good pitch.

The muggy late afternoon induced swing which Surrey new ball pair Jade Dernbach and James Ormond exploited to the full, reducing Durham to a perilous 21-3 at one stage.

Among those wickets was that of West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who only arrived in this country on Tuesday. He lasted just 20 balls in his first innings of the season for Durham, becoming Ormond's second victim taken at second slip by Stewart Walters.

Surrey themselves had been hit by illness and injury which left them scratching around for players. Mark Ramprakash's quest for his hundredth hundred was thwarted by a stomach bug, and he was joined on the sidelines by bowlers Pedro Collins (side strain), Saqlain Mushtaq (finger) and Matt Nicholson (metatarsal).

The Durham attack included Steve Harmison and he played a key role in the Surrey demise - but it was younger brother Ben who was the architect of a collapse which saw Surrey lose six wickets for 21 runs in nine overs.

Harmison the younger finished with a career best 4-27, although he did not have the satisfaction of ending Newman's reign. Liam Plunkett did that, having the left-hander caught at second slip after he had reached the 12th hundred of his first-class career.

--Half-centuries from Jim Troughton and Tony Frost gave Warwickshire the upper hand after the first day of their Second Division match with Middlesex at Uxbridge. The pair shared a fifth- wicket stand of 157, with Troughton unbeaten on 83 at the close as Warwickshire finished on 271 for 5.

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