Rain ruins Oval showdown

The covers stay on at The Oval on Sunday

Frizzell County Championship division one, AMP Oval, day three of four: Surrey 220 & 87-3 v Somerset 253

Match scorecard

Persistent rain in London meant no play was possible on the third day between Surrey and Somerset at The Oval.

Surrey have seven wickets in hand in their second innings and will look to build on their 54-run lead on Monday with a draw now the most likely result.

Somerset's Ian Blackwell believes his side's hopes of pushing for victory may have gone.

"They still have people like Ali Brown or Alec Stewart to come, and if they get set a lot of runs can soon be on the board," he said.

Caddick contemplates a day indoors

"The wicket is good but had started to break up a little when we were batting - so we just need to bowl well, keep putting it in the right areas and make it as difficult as we can for them."

On Saturday, Blackwell narrowly missed out on a seventh first-class century but Somerset had him to thank for keeping them on the heels of the Division One pacesetters.

Blackwell bucked the trend with an excellent 98 in what has been a low-scoring affair, his innings exclusively responsible for Somerset establishing a first-innings advantage over Surrey.

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Surrey: M A Butcher (Capt), I J Ward, M R Ramprakash, G P Thorpe, A D Brown, A J Stewart (Wkt), A J Tudor, M P Bicknell, I D K Salisbury, Saqlain Mushtaq, J Ormond.

Somerset: M E Trescothick (Capt), P D Bowler, J Cox, M Burns, K A Parsons, I D Blackwell, R J Turner (Wkt), K P Dutch, A R Caddick, M P L Bulbeck, P S Jones.

Umpires: G I Burgess and J W Holder