FOUR players, Martin Bicknell, Jimmy Ormond, David Harrison and Scott Newman, rose above the cricket from the other 18 yesterday that was either mundane or downright sloppy. Bicknell, the consummate bowling professional, earned his 42nd five-wicket haul and figures of six for 42, his best for three years.

Ormond bowled more than half as well with less than half the luck, Harrison hit the ball hard from the middle of a straight bat in making his third first-class fifty and Newman, as he had in the first innings, batted like a taller version of the absent Mark Butcher.

Harrison’s robust 75 not out apart, Glamorgan had a bad day, lightened only by the news that the scan on Simon Jones’s lower back revealed nothing to worry about. He hopes to play in the totesport League match at Chelmsford on Sunday. Such is the hardness of the pitch and outfield here that, unwittingly, he has probably chosen a good match to miss.

The pitch was beginning to offer some turn for Robert Croft and Dean Cosker in the last session, so more will be expected of Nayan Doshi, their only spinner while Ian Salisbury is recovering from a groin strain and in advance of the arrival of Harbhajan Singh. The India off spinner is awaiting an ICC decision today on the legitimacy of his action. If it is positive, Surrey hope that he will play in the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy on Tuesday and that will be not a moment too soon for them. They have not looked quite so powerful a team ever since Saqlain Mushtaq lost his fitness and, with it, his magic.

Batting that badly lacked application and judgment accounted for the fact that Glamorgan at one stage looked to be facing the possibility of a follow-on. They started well by hurrying through Surrey’s last three wickets, but Bicknell took only five balls to find that ideal length that makes him so dangerous whenever he has a new ball in his hands.

Constantly hitting the seam, as usual, from his model action, he had added a second leg-before by nipping a ball back sharply into David Hemp’s pads before lunch.

Michael Powell’s nine fours suggest a fluency that he never attained before Ormond uprooted his middle stump but Dan Cherry played stoutly for 37 overs and Harrison kept his side in the game with some hearty pulling and driving in his 73-ball innings.