Lancashire291 (Jennings 76, de Grandhomme 67*; Abbott 5-50) and 37 for 0 need 407 runs to beat Surrey 442 and 292 for 6 declared (Foakes 103*, Burns 54; Parkinson 5-120)
The climate caught up with the cricket season at Emirates Old Trafford today. When this match began on Thursday, Lancashire's players were requesting hand-warmers and probably wouldn't have minded a cup of Bovril in the middle of each session. This crystal morning, though, the play-false sunlight had been replaced by a playful variety and the impromptu games taking place on the outfield during the luncheon interval were evidence of the gentler temperature. Something of summer beckoned us.
Lancashire's players, of course, would have preferred the cricket to be as dour as a November afternoon but their opponents were having none of it. Once they had gained a 151-run advantage on first-innings Rory Burns and his colleagues sought to build a lead upon which they could declare in relative safety while also having enough time in which to bowl out Lancashire. There is nothing new-fangled about this approach; it was more Gazball, in honour of Surrey's first-team coach, than any more topical coinage. And as so often, the side setting the target probably over-egged the pudding.
The charge towards a frankly impregnable target of 444 was led by someone well-acquainted with the current England ethos, although also a batsman who possessed enough intelligence to renounce it in the first innings of this game. Having made 76 in 230 minutes on a chill Thursday afternoon, Ben Foakes stroked and then thumped an unbeaten 103 in 154 minutes this mild Saturday. He thus proved the obvious adage that one size or one strategy or one anything does not get near to meeting all situations in this game. Whoever thought it did? Certainly not Ben Stokes.
Nevertheless, this third afternoon possessed the roughly familiar shape of a match in which one side has established a thunderous superiority. Led by Foakes, Surrey pushed on while Lancashire's skipper Keaton Jennings frequently dispatched half his fielders to the boundary and hoped the civilised slaughter could be kept within bounds. It was a thankless afternoon for the newly appointed skipper but one on which he might have learned something about his players, particularly the younger ones.
The afternoon session, in particular, became something of a swap-shop as half of Surrey's top-order played lively cameos - or something more - and five batsmen were dismissed by Matt Parkinson, who mixed plenty of fine deliveries with some ropier stuff. The most pleasing innings on the eye was probably Ollie Pope's 38, even though it took the England man less than an hour to complete an effort that began with a defensive shot and ended with a slog-sweep to the deep, where Colin de Grandhomme took a fine diving catch - and lost his trousers. Not for the first time, it became possible to see Pope as Ian Bell's heir, the batsman most neutrals in the land would pay to watch.
At the other end, Burns was cutting his way to 54 before he was fourth out when attempting to sweep Parkinson but only managing to top-edge a catch to Dane Vilas at short fine leg. The bowler, meanwhile, having celebrated his first success when he removed Pope, immediately bowled Ryan Patel on a day when he would take 5 for 120 off 25, thereby reaching 150 first-class wickets, an achievement to boost the lad after an unsettling spring during which he has failed to get a gig not just in IPL but also the Hundred and was relieved to gain selection here.
By now it was early afternoon and the crowd from the football match was dispersing. Lowryesque figures, most of them seemingly wearing red uniforms, scuttled home past Trafford town hall and the nearby office-blocks. Some stayed awhile to watch the cricket and among them was one of Parkinson's predecessors, the former Lancashire and Surrey cricketer, Chris Schofield, for whom this ground was once both a home and a workplace. Today Schofield might have struggled to identify any building he recognised.
Parkinson, Jennings and their colleagues know this ground in all its modern erubescence and tomorrow they will aim to make Surrey's bowlers hope they do not see it again for a month or two. Forget all thoughts of a Lancashire victory. Five points for the draw and hours of tedium will be the aim. And should they achieve that dullest of goals, it will be important to recall seemingly small acts of resistance, such as Lancashire's final two wickets taking nigh on an hour to fall this third morning.
If nothing else, they sucked time out of the match and that is a task Jennings' players needed then and still need to accomplish. De Grandhomme and the tailenders just failed to avoid the follow-on but since Sean Abbott had made it plain on Friday evening that Surrey had no intention of enforcing it, that was more a matter of self-respect than anything else. Instead we were left with personal achievements to enjoy: Abbott's fifth wicket when he had Will Williams lbw for a gutsy 30 and de Grandhomme making a red-inked 67 in his maiden innings for his new county.
