It is a rare day at the Brit Oval that two Surrey batsmen score centuries and one of them is not Mark Ramprakash. Mark Butcher, the captain, having promoted himself to opener, held Surrey together then put them in control with powerful support from Matt Nicholson.

Surrey were reeling at 193 for five and risked throwing away the advantage afforded by winning the toss when Nicholson joined Butcher for an unbroken stand of 203 in 37 overs. Nicholson, normally a No 8 but with an excellent record with the bat, brought up his fourth first-class hundred in the last over of the day with his fifteenth boundary as Tim Bresnan continued to feed his cut.

Nicholson hits the ball powerfully, as one unfortunate pigeon discovered while feeding at short gully. It was struck, flew, crash-landed and was removed by Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, who was making his Yorkshire debut.

Yorkshire appeared to be marking time before taking the second new ball and then found that it disappeared to the boundary even faster. Butcher was unstoppable, cover-driving with unusual elegance to the boundary past the left hand of the sweeper. He was dropped on 133, when Surrey were 269, by Andrew Gale at short leg from the one ball with which Adil Rashid surprised him. Otherwise he appeared to have more time than anybody else and milked Rashid for singles off the back foot.

Butcher ended the day on 189, two runs away from his best score at the Oval and 11 short of a third double hundred. To put Ramprakash's 99 hundreds in some perspective, Butcher, who had a more successful England career, and at 35 is only three years younger than Ramprakash, has scored 38 first-class hundreds.

Oliver Hannon-Dalby, 18, a fast-medium bowler with a whippy wrist action who was as impressive in his early spells as he is tall at 6ft 6in, should remember his maiden first-class wicket, on his debut, with great fondness. In the third over after lunch, Ramprakash, on 29, was surprised by the bounce, fished away from his body and edged to second slip. Deon Kruis dismissed the next two batsmen as Usman Afzaal was caught behind driving in the next over and Alistair Brown appeared to misjudge the length and was trapped in front. Surrey lost three wickets for nine runs in 20 balls.

Jonathan Batty, who has prospered before when dropping down the order, steadied the ship in a partnership of 72 with Butcher until he edged Anthony McGrath to second slip, where Joe Sayers took a sharp catch to his left. Thereafter Yorkshire seemed to lose their way. McGrath bowled himself too long, then tried Jacques Rudolph to little effect before the new ball was taken. Butcher and Nicholson then bled the white rose.

Surrey: First Innings

S A Newman c Brophy b Bresnan 21
*M A Butcher not out 189
M R Ramprakash c McGrath b Hannon-Dalby 29
U Afzaal c Brophy b Kruis 0
A D Brown lbw b Kruis 0
J N Batty c Sayers b McGrath 26
M J Nicholson not out 103

Extras (b 3, lb 13, nb 12) 28
Total (5 wkts, 97 overs) 396

J Ormond, Saqlain Mushtaq, M Hussain and P T Collins to bat.

Fall of wickets: 1-41, 2-112, 3-113, 4-121, 5-193.
Bowling: Naved 17-2-79-0; Kruis 20-2-67-2; Hannon-Dalby 15-2-58-1; Bresnan 18-1-85-1; Rashid 18-1-51-0; McGrath 7-0-25-1; Rudolph 2-0-15-0.

Yorkshire: J J Sayers, A Lyth, *A McGrath, J A Rudolph, A W Gale, G L Brophy, A U Rashid, T T Bresnan, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, G J Kruis, O J Hannon-Dalby.

Umpires: G I Burgess and N G Cowley.