THE biggest security operation mounted at an English cricket ground swung into action at the Oval yesterday within minutes of Bill Gordon, the head groundsman, cutting out the pitch on which England’s thrilling bid to regain the Ashes from Australia will reach its climax next week.

So, if anyone is planning to sabotage the pitch, as vandals supporting a convicted criminal did at Headingley in 1975, when they caused the third Test against Australia to be abandoned as a draw, they would be wise to think again.

The fifth and final Test does not start until next Thursday but Paul Sheldon, the Surrey chief executive, said last night: “We have stepped up security as of today, with the emphasis on 24-hour human and electronic surveillance.

“We are taking absolutely no risks. We are not only staging the biggest sporting event in England since the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley but we are also very much aware of what has happened in Central London, and particularly at the Oval tube station, in recent weeks.”

The first four days of the match were sold out last November and when Surrey took the unprecedented step of offering tickets in March for the final day, they were all sold within hours. Now they are changing hands for staggering sums but Sheldon had a stern warning for anyone buying them from ticket touts or eBay, the online auction site.

“The situation on eBay is that we have a very sophisticated system for tracing any tickets that appear and we have already withdrawn 1,500 tickets through this system,” Sheldon said. “Any tickets we trace are being cancelled and reissued to people on our waiting list so that they will finish up in the hands of the real supporters.

“We cannot take much action against the touts but people buying tickets from them need to be very careful because tickets are not transferable under our ground regulations.”