Dogged Surrey chip away

Spots of rain and fading light truncated yet another day's play, though less so than yesterday as more than 70 overs were possible on day two.

The bowlers continued to plug away on a slow pitch and the Worcestershire innings was eventually ended with the final ball of the day from Jon Lewis, 285 all out. Maximum bowling points comfortably in the bag.

All of Worcestershire's top seven made it in to double figures but none passed 61. Moeen Ali was the top scorer with a typically fluent innings, he and former skipper Vikram Solanki formed the backbone of the innings with a partnership of 102. James Cameron added a valuable fifty as well but it's hard to say what is a par score until Surrey have at least had a good crack on this pitch.

Lewis and Tim Linley shared seven of the ten wickets to fall, Edwards picked up his maiden first class wicket - that of Moeen Ali who edged behind to Davies and Gareth Batty chipped in with the wicket of Pardoe. Since I'm constantly moaning about Chris Jordan's no-ball issues, it's only fair to mention that Jon Lewis bowled six today. A man who has sent down over 40,000 deliveries in first class cricket shouldn't be over-stepping six times in an innings. I'm splitting hairs though, his 3-79 gives him 17 wickets at 16 for the season. It is also good to see Linley back in the wickets after a lean start to the season (relatively speaking).

The nature of this pitch probably won't suit the extravagant strokemakers in our top order but with the exceptional talents of Tom Maynard way down batting at number seven a substantial total is well within our grasp. Alan Richardson, Jones, Lucas and the promising young Aneesh Kapil will have something else to say about that though. Kevin Pietersen will be relieved to learn that there is not a left arm spinner on the opposing side though.

With the bowling points in the bag Adams will be desperate to post as many batting points as well. Plenty of the top order are short of runs and Pietersen will want to show he can shift seamlessly from Indian conditions to the vastly different circumstances at New Road.