Surrey’s resistance is a sober lesson for young souls

Surrey 242 (Foakes 59*, Rayner 6-79) and 98 for 0 trail Middlesex 395 by 55 runsScorecard

The hum of the Oval, generally a low murmur that has descended seamlessly into grumbles over the last month, was knocked up several octaves on day three. As part of Surrey’s school initiatives, thousands of children filed into the OCS stand before the start of play to bump up the attendance to more than 6,000.

“I was going to sit over there,” complained one regular, as he looked over ruefully at the sea of more than 100 different school uniforms gleefully smashing inflatable sticks together. In his defence, it is a part of the ground that is usually bathed in sunshine at the start of the evening session.

Today, however, the clouds covered it up. Only the floodlights offered any illumination. By then, the kids had filed out at tea, ushered out of the gates just after tea by their bedraggled teachers. Their concentration had started to wane: one even managed to evade the eyes of his supervisors to find refuge under the white tarpaulin that was acting as a sightscreen for this match.

Rory Burns spotted him as a head popped up through the tightly pulled sheet. Arun Harinath dobbed him in. A swift telling off from a steward did the trick as the child returned to his unimpressed teacher. Burns and Harinath were in the middle of their own naughty-boy detention: asked to do better with the bat after Surrey’s first innings ended four short of avoiding the follow-on. Their concentration second-time around was worthy of a gold star.

Ollie Rayner had ended Surrey’s …

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