Brothers in arms halt Lancashire

The young seam-bowling brothers were Surrey’s star performers with the ball as Lancashire mustered two batting bonus points on a seemingly ideal day for crease occupation.

In response, Surrey’s openers Rory Burns and Dominic Sibley survived the last 15 overs in reaching 50 without loss with Burns posting his 1,000th first-class run for the summer in the process.

Burns edged to slip in the day’s final over but survived when Rob Jones downed a sharp, low chance to ensure the brown caps hammered home their first day superiority and will go into the second day trailing by 237.

Batting first after winning the toss, Lancashire lost Luke Procter lbw in the eighth over of the day when he played across one on the back foot to be wrapped in front by Sam Curran.

Then, after Surrey’s attack had extracted some exaggerated bounce, the in-form Haseeb Hameed fell hook, line and sinker for the host’s leg theory trap. The right-hander gloved an attempted pull shot against Stuart Meaker to the wicketkeeper Ben Foakes, who held a diving catch almost in a leg gully position.

A seam-bowling masterclass by the Curran brothers then sparked the loss of a further five Lancashire wickets in the mid-session. Giving nothing away in terms of width or length, the siblings mopped up three wickets inside an hour of the resumption.

Left-armer Sam started the rout bowling from the Vauxhall End with a prefect in-swinger. Alviro Petersen made a late decision to withdraw the bat, but could only deflect the ball onto off stump via the toe end.

Brother Tom got in on the act by having Liam Livingstone caught behind, then Sam responded with another beauty, a leg-cutter that grazed the outside edge of Steven Croft’s bat to give Foakes his third catch of the day.

Jordan Clark and Jones dug in for the next 25 overs to add 85 but, on the cusp of tea Clark, fishing outside off stump against Meaker, was sensationally caught, low, one-handed and diving to his right by 38-year-old Kumar Sangakkara at first slip for 56.

Sam Curran returned to bag his fourth scalp of the day in a third spell when Jones (25), in reaching to drive a wide one, dragged the ball on via a thick outside edge.