Flower stuns Surrey

County Championship D1, The Oval, day two (close): Surrey 318 v Essex 464

Full scorecard

Essex dominated the second day with Zimbabwean Andy Flower recording his highest score of the season.

The 35-year-old smashed an unbeaten 201 as the visitors were dismissed for 464 before bad light stopped play 30 minutes early.

Resuming on 112-1, Alistair Cook, who hit 84 off 87 balls, and Flower added 157 for the second wicket before Cook's innings was ended by Neil Saker.

Flower and Mark Pettini (70) then put on 115 for the next wicket before Pettini was dismissed immediately before lunch.

Ravi Bopara and James Foster made useful contributions while Flower ploughed on relentlessly, hitting 20 boundaries in his 297-ball knock.

Rikki Clarke picked up three wickets for last year's champions as Essex took a first-innings lead of 146.

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Surrey: S A Newman, J N Batty, N Shahid, R Clarke, A D Brown J G E Benning, B J M Scott (Wkt), I D K Salisbury (Capt) T J Murtagh, P J Sampson, N C Saker.

Essex: W I Jefferson, A N Cook, A Flower (Capt), M L Pettini R S Bopara, J S Foster (Wkt), J D Middlebrook, G R Napier J P Stephenson, A J Clarke, Mohammad Akram.

Umpires: A G T Whitehead, P Willey.