De Bruyn the star man on day one

Zander de Bruyn's second Championship hundred of the season and two wickets late in the day for Meaker and Linley made it a pretty even day, and Surrey may feel they are in the ascendancy.

De Bruyn received only fleeting support from the rest of the top order, it was a timely return to form with the bat for Gareth Batty which enabled a score just shy of 400. They didn't hang about either, our runs were scored at 4.7 an over.

In a slightly surprising selection Adams elected to give Zafar Ansari his Championship debut ahead of Yasir Arafat, he will be disappointed to have been dismissed by Joe Denly's part time leg spin for just four, but his time will come. Denly and van Jaarsveld sharing five wickets between them might also hint at something in the pitch for the slow bowlers.

That half the wickets went to part time bowlers is disappointing (though just because they're part timers doesn't mean they bowled badly), the dangermen Robbie Joseph and Wahab Riaz took just two between them. Given the rate we scored at, it's obviously a decent pitch, you have to feel we should've got maximum batting points at least. So it was down to the bowlers to give us the upper hand and with 11 overs to play, Denly and the nightwatchman Joseph were sent back by Linley and Meaker - they now have 50 wickets between them this season.

There is still plenty of batting to come from Kent though, Key is still in, Northeast, Stevens and Jones can all score plenty and van Jaarsveld loves batting against us at the Oval. The forecast for tomorrow is for sunny intervals so the bowlers should look to exploit the cloud cover and get us a decent first innings lead.