SURREY negotiated the final day to draw with Northamptonshire at the Kia Oval and will take a slender advantage into the final week of the County Championship season.
Northamptonshire will be relegated after they enforced the follow-on but failed to make inroads in the second innings. They are still without a win at The Oval since 1994.
Surrey were asked to follow on 172 runs behind after being bowled out for 185 in reply to Northamptonshire’s 357.
Openers Dom Sibley and Rory Burns batted diligently in the hour before lunch against some testing new-ball bowling from Northants’ seamers and throughout the final two sessions in some of the best batting conditions of a rain-affected four days.
The players came off at 16:20 BST for bad light and the players shook hands with 19 overs remaining, Surrey had reached 142 without loss, with Burns unbeaten on 71 and Sibley 67.
Surrey took eight points to take them to 213, guaranteeing a lead over Essex – the magnitude of which was dependent on the latter’s result against Hampshire at Chelmsford.
In the final round of games starting next Tuesday, Surrey travel to Hampshire while Essex visit Northampton.
Surrey’s first innings, which resumed on 158-6, lasted for only another 52 minutes and 11.2 overs on the final morning as their remaining four wickets fell for just 27 runs.
\Jamie Overton, who had struck a counter-attacking half-century on the third afternoon, added a single before edging Jack White to first slip on 51 and in White’s next over, Dan Worrall was caught behind for a duck.
Tom Lawes made seven before giving Karun Nair his second catch of the morning at slip, this time off Ben Sanderson, and Ben Foakes – on 33 overnight – was now left with last man Kemar Roach for company with another 34 required to save the follow-on.
Foakes chipped away for a while but, on 42, went across his stumps in a bid to whip Tom Taylor’s fast-medium away to mid-wicket and was leg before.
Taylor finished with first-innings figures of 2-39 and there were also two wickets for both Sanderson and Luke Procter, in support of the impressive White’s 4-45.
With Northants needing a win the bowlers were immediately given another chance and Sibley survived two strong lbw appeals in successive overs from Sanderson on 12 and Taylor on 13, the first pitching marginally outside the line and the second possibly sliding down the leg side.
But after lunch it got easier, with Burns passing fifty for the fourth time this season while Sibley lodged his fifth half-century of the summer with few alarms.
By the end Northants had used nine different bowlers, their hopes of victory and avoiding a return to Division Two over regardless of how many points Kent and Middlesex picked up from their games against Somerset and Warwickshire respectively.(BBC Sport).
