Steve Rhodes, the Worcestershire coach, who has been affectionately known as “Bumpy” for as long as anyone in cricket can remember, may be considering changing his name to “Rocky”, for these are tough times at New Road.

Having swum to rescue his laptop from his office on Saturday – an ultimately futile mission – he is still awaiting an announcement from the ECB as to whether the controversially rescheduled match against Kent will go ahead and, if not, how many points his team will come away with.

While the waters remain muddy on and off the pitch, Rhodes has more practical matters to resolve. “I drop the guys a text message about where we’re training because we’ve got no ground and no indoor school,” he said. “Kidderminster and Ombursley cricket clubs have lent us their facilities, for which we’re very grateful, and we’re playing our Pro-40 match against Sussex at Edgbaston.”

His team are 26 points adrift at the foot of the LV County Championship first division, knowing that victory over Surrey, their nearest relegation rivals, is essential if they are to turn their season around. Vikram Solanki, the captain, promptly lost the toss before Doug Bollinger, bowling Worcestershire’s first ball in three matches, overstepped the line twice in each of his first three overs.

Surrey had the better of the 50 overs possible, despite the loss of Jon Batty and Scott Newman, the openers, who both perished advancing down the wicket to the off spin of Gareth Batty. Mark Ramprakash and Mark Butcher moved ominously to 32 and 37 respectively before rain ended play.