CASTING around for a saviour, Surrey found only a hero turned villain as they desperately sought the last Gloucestershire wicket as time ran out. Alistair Brown, who scored a rapid 170 over the weekend, dropped three chances at first slip, including the one that would have won the game.

Adam Hollioake had just ended a partnership of 42 in 17 overs for the ninth wicket when the dogged Ian Fisher scuffed a drive to short extra cover. In Hollioake’s next over Jonathan Lewis got a thick edge to Brown’s right. It was the hardest of the three chances and smacked out to the disbelief of his colleagues. If Brown had held the chance, Surrey would have needed only five to win from seven overs. They normally win when Brown scores a hundred — they have not lost when he has done so since 1997.

At one stage when the visiting side were 110 for five shortly after lunch it looked like Surrey would romp to a victory that would have taken them from eighth, and flirting with relegation, to third in the table.

For all their traumatic losses this season this failure may hurt the most. The loss of Martin Bicknell with a groin strain after he had bowled one over after lunch proved a huge blow with Jonathan Batty, the captain, already having to juggle an attack depleted by injury.

In the morning session Brown had dropped a simple chance off Bicknell. The former England bowler had made a key breakthrough when Craig Spearman was leg-before for the second time in the match and then Matt Windows escaped off his first ball. Then Brown, standing up too early again, dropped Chris Taylor on five in Jimmy Ormond’s first over after lunch.

Neither chance seemed to matter as Gloucestershire soon lost three wickets for eight runs in three overs. Ormond, dodgy knees notwithstanding, was all but unplayable. But with the overs ticking away, Steve Rixon, the Surrey coach, prowling the perimeter and darkening clouds gathering from the east, Surrey nerves frayed.