With Mark Butcher and Mark Ramprakash gone late in the day, Surrey face a scramble to save the match today. Butcher was caught behind and then Ramprakash, uncomfortable against Adil Rashid, got one high on the bat turning to leg and was caught at short leg.

The one thing in Surrey's favour, aside from a friendly pitch, is the curse on Yorkshire's bowlers as Rana Naved-ul-Hasan yesterday joined the ranks of the injured. Naved, making his debut for Yorkshire, pulled up with a suspected hamstring tear in the right leg, running a single.

Martyn Moxon, the Yorkshire director of cricket, said: “He will have a scan in the morning. It's difficult to say, but the way it's looking, it's going to be a long time.”

Morne Morkel, the South Africa fast bowler who was a stand-in for Naved, played one championship match before returning home with a hamstring tear. Darren Gough, the captain, is out with miscellaneous niggles, Matthew Hoggard has a broken thumb and Ajmal Shahzad also has a hamstring injury.

Surrey took three wickets in the first fifty minutes of the day to create the possibility of an exciting last day. But Andrew Gale, with his highest first class score of 150, was full of muscular drives and pulls after his partnership of 206 runs in 50 overs with Jacques Rudolph was broken when Rudolph padded up to Usman Afzaal.

Gale top-edged to long leg the ball after reaching 150 and Ran went down with Yorkshire still one behind, but Tim Bresnan took over and with an unbeaten 84 took Yorkshire to a 59 run first innings lead.

Surrey: First Innings 466 for 8 dec (M A Butcher 205, M J Nicholson 133)

Second Innings
S A Newman not out 26
M A Butcher c Brophy b Kruis 7
M R Ramprakash c Gale b Rashid 14
Murtaza Hussain not out 7
Extras (lb 2) 2
Total (2 wkts, 24 overs) 56

Fall of wickets: 1-13, 2-46.

Bowling: Kruis 7-3-16-1; Hannon-Dalby 3-0-12-0; Rashid 9-2-16-1; Bresnan 4-0-10-0; Rudolph 1-1-0-0.

Yorkshire: First Innings (overnight 292-3)
J J Sayers lbw b Collins 14
A Lyth c Butcher b Saqlain Mushtaq 40
*A McGrath lbw b Collins 54
J A Rudolph lbw b Afzaal 121
A W Gale c Collins b Nicholson 150
G L Brophy c Nicholson b Saqlain 1
A U Rashid c Newman b Afzaal 6
T T Bresnan not out 84
Rana Naved-ul-Hasan retired hurt 19
G J Kruis c Ormond b Collins 17
O J Hannon-Dalby b Collins 1
Extras (b 3, lb 8, w 1, nb 6) 18
Total (132.3 overs) 525

Fall of wickets: 1-22, 2-101, 3-123, 4-329, 5-334, 6-343, 7-432, 8-513, 9-525.

Bowling: Collins 26.3-2-111-4; Ormond 15-0-69-0; Nicholson 16-1-81-1; Saqlain 39-3-139-2; Hussain 16-0-52-0; Afzaal 20-3-62-2.

Umpires: G I Burgess and N G Cowley.