Surrey’s relief was palpable at an autumnal Rose Bowl last night after they had claimed the victory that lifted them above both Kent and Warwickshire at the bottom of the LV County Championship first division and consigned Worcestershire to relegation.

It looked as though it would be straightforward for Surrey when they reduced Hampshire, needing 335 to avoid an innings defeat, to 198 for eight shortly after lunch but they were held up for 42 overs by a ninth wicket stand of 99 between Nic Pothas, captaining Hampshire in the absence of Shane Warne, and David Griffiths, 21, a fast bowler from the Isle of Wight.

Then Pothas, who had batted heroically for four hours 40 minutes in making 92 off 256 balls with 14 fours, was given out leg-before to a ball from Matt Nicholson that he obviously felt was missing leg stump and risked censure from the umpires by stomping off swishing his bat and kicking the ground. Five balls later, James Bruce was caught at slip off Chris Schofield, leaving Griffiths defiantly unbeaten on 31 off 108 balls, and Mark Butcher, the Surrey captain, could relax at last.

“You do start to think,” he said. “The history of the game tells you that if you get a side eight down at tea-time there’s little chance that they’re going to hang on, so we just kept believing that it was going to happen eventually.

“Having tried everything with people bowling well and doing all the right things pretty much for the whole day and not being able to make any sort of breakthrough, it does cross your mind that it might not happen, particularly when it’s been that sort of season anyway. Our fate is in our own hands now but the biggest thing is the way that we’ve played since the Twenty20. Even though we’ve been in the bottom two the belief in the side was that we would get out of it. No one’s had their head down, no one’s been talking about relegation, the thinking has been that we would be all right and we’re starting to play well.”

It had been a dominant performance by Surrey from the moment Mark Ramprakash, missing yesterday with flu, and Butcher led them to a total of 556 until Schofield, the leg spinner that England forgot, and Harbhajan Singh, the off spinner that India did not want, completed the job with 14 wickets between them.

“We’re thankful that India saw fit not to pick Harbhajan on their tour,” Butcher said. “As for Schofield, he came with a reputation for being a bit difficult but I haven’t seen that at all and to take eight wickets on a pitch where it was difficult to get anyone out was a magnificent effort.”

The consolation for Hampshire is that Warne’s rib injury is not as bad as first feared and he hopes to be back to play against Worcestershire at Kidderminster this week. The proof that their ambition is undimmed is that they are ready to open talks with Simon Jones, the England fast bowler, even though he has taken only one wicket for 290 in four games for Glamorgan since recovering from knee surgery.

Somerset will be back in the first division next season after beating Glamorgan by an innings and 229 runs with a day to spare at Taunton on Saturday.

They will be joined by either Nottinghamshire, 34.5 points behind after drawing with Middlesex at Lord’s, or Essex, a further 29.5 points adrift despite beating Derbyshire by 227 runs at Derby.