SOURAV GANGULY is proving an embarrassment for Northamptonshire. Signed at great expense and supposedly on a mission to regain his Test place, the former India captain lamely slapped his third ball to cover yesterday evening as his side crumbled towards an inevitable defeat in pursuit of 453.

Ganguly’s fourth single- figure score — he has scored 0, 2, 6, 2 — since replacing Chris Rogers would not have been so bad if he had been seen to be trying in the field, but, for most of Surrey’s second innings, he ambled after the ball.

The home side had already lost Rob White and Bilal Shafayat to debatable leg-befores and seen Usman Afzaal, their first-innings century-maker, bowled for nought. A scoreboard display of 52 for five as David Sales fell leg-before in Ian Salisbury’s first over was simply unimaginable when Mark Ramprakash was stroking his way to 155, his 84th hundred, either side of lunch.

“I’m not sure I’ve got enough left in the tank,” Ramprakash has said of reaching a century of first-class centuries. Jonathan Batty matched Ramprakash throughout a second-wicket partnership of 281 — a Surrey record against Northamptonshire — and was delighted with his first championship century since last August.