Darren Gough; captain, diamond earring-wearing fast bowler and television champion ballroom dancer, but not apparently a gambler.

In his first championship match in charge of his native Yorkshire, Gough ground Surrey into the grass yesterday, batting on until 5.40pm to set the home team 517 in a minimum of 109 overs. The most they have chased to win a championship game is 410 against Kent in 2002.

Left to negotiate 13 overs last night, Jonathan Batty was caught at bat-pad off the last ball of the day from Adil Rashid. Given another ten overs, Rashid might have been as destructive as he had been the evening before when he took four wickets for nine runs in 15 balls.

Perhaps Gough’s conservatism was understandable, though, as this has been a record-breaking game on a beautiful batting surface. Another fell yesterday as Craig White’s century meant an unhappy statistic for Surrey as it was the first time that they have had four hundreds scored against them in a championship match.

It was something of a surprise that Gough did not enforce the follow-on after he had helped Yorkshire take the last five Surrey wickets before lunch. Resuming on 237 for five, Surrey rallied briefly before continuing their collapse. Mark Ramprakash moved from his unbeaten 92 to his 88th first-class hundred and sixth against Yorkshire, with his first six, driving Rashid over long-off. It was something of a shock when he bottom-edged one that kept low to the wicketkeeper off Jason Gillespie.

Strangely, Gough persisted with Rashid and then Jacques Rudolph’s leg-breaks. But when Matthew Hoggard returned, Azhar Mahmood steered his first bouncing awayswinger straight to the wicketkeeper. Hoggard immediately took the new ball and the end was swift. Rikki Clarke and Jimmy Ormond were caught behind off successive balls from Gough and Steve Magoffin was bowled in Gough’s next over. Surrey had gone from 221 for one to 344 all out — 101 short of the follow-on.

But instead of sending Surrey in again, Gough preferred to bat. White and Joe Sayers accrued steadily for Yorkshire before spreading their wings. White’s 117 came off 131 balls, with seven sixes, all off Nayan Doshi.