Surrey passed their first test of character yesterday. They say being top dog carries with it its own burdens – everyone is said to try that little bit harder against the reigning champions. Lancashire certainly did that. Had it not been for Ian Ward and Rikki Clarke’s sixth wicket partnership of 144 in 32 overs (a county record for the fixture, surpassing W.J.Abel and P.G.H.Fender’s 116 at The Oval in 1923) the visitors would almost certainly have taken an early lead in the 2003 championship race.

As it was they were held to a draw by Ward’s six-hour vigil and another innings of immense promise from the 21-year-old Clarke. Ian Ward said afterwards: “We got away with it today. We played exceptionally well for one day – matched Lancashire for one day – but they took the honours. They batted better. They batted with more discipline. I think they bowled with more discipline as well and they were deservedly leaders at the two-thirds stage. But we’ll take great heart in the way we batted today as a team.”

At lunch the home side had been in a precarious position. Needing 319 simply to make the visitors bat again, they were 150 for four. With both of their “openers” having been out to indiscriminate shots in the first innings, both should have been keen to make amends. But Graham Thorpe, who played more wristily than of late, took the bait offered to him by Andy Flintoff in the thirty-fifth over and holed out to a catch on the leg side boundary for the second time in the match.

The dismissal of Alistair Brown was equally avoidable. 124 for three became 131 for four when he was run out without scoring. Mark Chilton, who stopped Brown’s stinging drive at cover, threw the ball on one leg back to the bowler, Schofield, who did the necessaries. The 33-year-old right-hander, who needs a championship hundred against the red rose county to complete his hand, was not even in the frame.

Surrey’s plight worsened after lunch when Adam Hollioake was caught at gully off Kyle Hogg’s third delivery of the innings. However, in the final analysis the turning point had come much earlier when Ian Ward was bowled by Chris Schofield’s only no-ball of the match. After that Ward, who was on 73 at the time, never looked back. But, as he admitted later: “Games are won and lost on things like that. It’s one of those things. You bowl a ‘no-ey’ and you pay the price.”

The 30-year-old left-hander batted with a combination of watchfulness and aggression for a total of 368 minutes. He faced 221 balls and hit twenty-seven boundaries. All three of his sixes came off the bowling of hapless Schofield – the first within minutes of Thorpe’s departure, from a sweep, the next in the 60th over, which was more of a lap, and the third ten overs later.

Ward’s first hundred since making four in four innings at the end of last season was achieved in 156 deliveries with his seventeenth boundary – a clip backward of square on the leg side off Schofield. Half an hour later his rasping pull off Flintoff brought up the hundred partnership between him and Clarke.

When the end eventually came, tens runs short of his career best, Ian Ward could be excused the tired cover drive that gave Jimmy Anderson his first wicket of the innings. Nevertheless his exit still left Surrey twenty-six runs adrift of making Lancashire bat again with forty-odd overs potentially remaining.

Despite his lack of years Rikki Clarke overcame the tension of the situation and assumed the role of senior partner with aplomb, putting his side ahead in the 82nd over with a straight drive off Anderson.

Clarke, who reached his half-century in 85 deliveries with another well-timed straight drive, took only 54 balls over his next fifty. As a batsman he hits the ball deceptively hard, but with no lack of grace. He finished with an unbeaten 127 in 217 minutes and contributed 74 to his 85-run seventh-wicket alliance with Alex Tudor, who admirably, if exaggeratedly, got behind everything for 68 balls before the teams agreed to call it a day at 5.42pm.

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