SURREY’S season has led them down a series of dead ends, but a turning point might just be around the corner.

Faced with the horrible prospect of a second defeat in the space of a month against their north London rivals Middlesex, they got their heads down and emerged with their pride intact. Surrey went into this game languishing in the relegation zone and without a championship win in eight. They were missing their two injured Pakistanis, Azhar Mahmood and Saqlain Mushtaq, while attempts to sign the Indian left-arm seamer Zaheer Khan have fallen foul of complications over a work visa.

To make matters worse, vandals broke into The Oval on Thursday night and dug up an area just off the square, and on Friday evening the Surrey captain Jon Batty was involved in a dispute with the Middlesex keeper David Nash.

On the field, the feeling within the club is that they have simply failed to take their chances. In this game the obligatory missed opportunity came on the second morning when Middlesex slipped to 62 for four in reply to Surrey’s 359, only for Ed Joyce and Jamie Dalrymple to add 298.

Middlesex’s eventual declaration, 128 ahead, meant Surrey’s task was simply to see out the final day. Going by recent form, this was easier said than done. Yet from their overnight 11 for one, the in-form Scott Newman and Mark Ramprakash set about making the game safe.

Newman, who passed 1,000 first-class runs for Surrey in only his 20th innings, was merciless on anything off-line. Ramprakash was solidity itself. Then, with the stand worth 155, the jitters briefly returned. Having moved to 676 first-class runs for the summer and overtaken Graeme Hick as the country’s leading run scorer, Newman was run out by Lance Klusener’s direct hit from mid-off after Ramprakash failed to respond to his call for a single. Three overs later, Ramprakash turned Paul Weekes straight into the hands of short leg to depart for 66, and Rikki Clarke soon edged the pony-tailed Chad Keegan to first slip.

But Ally Brown held firm to make his first championship fifty since August and Adam Hollioake knuckled down as Surrey eased to safety in the evening sunshine. Now they just have to win a game.