Mark Ramprakash yesterday became the first batsman to average more than 100 in successive English seasons by signing off with yet another master-class that left Lancashire needing to score a mountainous 489 to win the county championship outright for the first time in 73 years.

Only Geoffrey Boycott, with averages of 100.12 in 1971 and 102.53 in 1979, had achieved the feat twice. Only Graham Gooch, with 101.70 in 1990, and Damien Martyn, with 104.66 on the 2001 Australia tour, have done it since.

Yet, such is Ramprakash’s towering supremacy over all he surveys in county cricket these days, there was never a moment’s doubt that he would make the sort of history that Lancashire crave when he went in to mock their aspirations for the second time in the match.

His first-innings score of 196 had left him requiring 104 not out to reach 2,000 runs for a second successive season and take his average to exactly 100.

In the event, he finished unbeaten on 130, giving him 2,026 runs at 101.30 compared with his 2,278 at 103.54 last year. And there was absolutely nothing that Lancashire could do about it.

Ramprakash did miscue a couple of times, on 67 and 79, but, apart from those minor blemishes, it was another faultless exhibition as he went nervelessly to his tenth century of the season and the 97th of his career, off 193 balls with 16 fours.

It was the sixth time that he had scored two centuries in a match and raised the question of why the England selectors have steadfastly ignored him since he played the last of his 52 Tests in New Zealand in 2002. He has scored nearly 11,000 runs and 44 centuries since then and is without peer in the English game.

He was also the last batsman Lancashire wanted to see as they stood on the brink of the championship. He had simply batted them out of this match and, barring a miracle today, the title race, by the time they saw the back of him after nearly 12 hours at the crease.

Mark Butcher, the Surrey captain, did not show them much mercy, either. Apart from joining Ramprakash in a third-wicket partnership of 77, he batted on until Lancashire needed to make the second-highest winning score by a side batting fourth in the history of the championship. It is surely beyond them.