SURREY face a nervous fourth day hoping both to take the last four Gloucestershire secondinnings wickets cheaply and to have enough time to pursue their target. The rain that is forecast today could hinder their chances of a victory that may well be essential to their chances of avoiding relegation.

Gloucestershire were in no mood to repeat their woeful first innings start after Surrey had gained a lead of 113. Although they lost Craig Spearman in the eighth over, a top-edged pull giving Azhar Mahmood a return catch, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Kadeer Ali batted in princely fashion.

Having come in on a king pair, Sarwan played beautifully, feasting on Mohammad Akram’s wayward fare with shots all round the wicket. His 99 took him just 129 balls, and included 15 fours as well as a six over extra cover off Nayan Doshi.

Encouraged by the freedom with which the Guyanese batted, Kadeer stood tall and hit some lovely strokes on the up himself. Together, they added 151 for the second wicket at the rollicking rate of five an over.

Kadeer, whose 12 previous first-class innings this season had brought him only 168 runs, has not done full justice to his considerable talent, but his accomplished 66 off 111 balls here should do much for his confidence. He was unluckily bowled off his pads by Doshi.

Sarwan seemed destined for a second hundred in successive matches until he lost his momentum during a 30-ball plod through the nineties, eventually sweeping Saqlain Mushtaq straight to square leg. The former Pakistan off spinner has been playing for East Grinstead this summer, and was re-signed after impressing Mickey Stewart in a Sussex League match, but, with a single wicket in each innings of this match, Saqlain has not found his return to the professional game a straightforward one.

Once Sarwan had been dismissed, Surrey badly needed to work through the middle order as quickly as possible. They could not manage it.

Although Doshi struck twice in one over when Matt Windows was leg-before offering no stroke and Steve Adshead spooned a loose drive to cover, Alex Gidman could not be prised out.

The stand-in Gloucestershire captain has been the bane of Surrey’s bowlers of late with 62, 25, 93, 142 and 84 in his past five innings against them, and when bad light ended play early at 6.15pm, he had added an unbeaten 40 to that sequence.

Two boundaries off Doshi — one a majestic drive through extra cover and the other a straight six into the pavilion — underlined Gidman’s class. Surrey’s last three wickets had lasted exactly an hour in the morning. Mark Ramprakash fell eight short of a tenth double hundred when William Rudge extracted some extra bounce to have him caught at slip.

Of his 77 career hundreds, Ramprakash has converted as many as 23 into scores in excess of 150.