THE contractors who are redeveloping the Vauxhall End were not the only people with a massive rebuilding job on their hands yesterday. Surrey were in a similar position when Sussex reduced them to 121 for six, before Azhar Mahmood and Martin Bicknell shored them up with a sixth-wicket partnership of 106 in only 20 overs.

Surrey’s last four wickets were to add 183 in glorious spring sunshine as they locked horns with the team that took the championship from them last season on an opening day that mocked all those people who decry county cricket. They do not know what they are talking about.

The cricket could not have been more intense in any other domestic competition in the world than it was after Jonathan Batty, now the Surrey captain as well as opening batsman and wicketkeeper, won the toss and challenged Sussex to show that a winter of celebration had not blunted their competitive edge.

It had not. Batty was the first to go when he fell leg- before to the left-arm swing of Jason Lewry and when Scott Newman was caught behind off Mohammad Akram, it was apparent that Surrey’s batting is not what it used to be now that Alec Stewart has retired, Ian Ward has joined Sussex and Mark Butcher and Graham Thorpe are under central contracts.

Mark Ramprakash is still there, of course, and for a while he looked a reassuring presence, but then he became the first of three victims in 32 balls for Robin Martin-Jenkins, who finished with four for 59. James Benning betrayed his inexperience by lifting a catch to mid-off after battling hard for 24, Ramprakash disgusted himself by carving a short ball to cover point and Adam Hollioake flirted with the last ball before lunch and was caught behind.

There had been just enough early-season juice in the pitch to encourage the Sussex bowlers, but it did not explain a score of 84 for five and it was not long before the sun had done its work and the surface became much typical of the Oval. They are usually the kind of pitches that Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, says he wants in county cricket so that his bowlers can learn to bowl in conditions such as they encountered in Antigua — although how they are going to do that when he does not allow them to play much county cricket is another story.

It was still not benign enough for Alistair Brown, who had a dismal season last year — only 481 championship runs at 28.29 — and he did not get far again before he was leg-before to Lewry, but it did not hold too many perils for Azhar and Bicknell.

Azhar, the Pakistan all-rounder, has played more one-day internationals (127) than he has first-class matches (94) and it showed as he plundered 84 off 97 balls, driving Martin-Jenkins for two sixes into the pavilion, smashing Mushtaq Ahmed into the builders’ rubble at the other end and hitting 13 fours besides. Bicknell gave him admirable support with 45 off 59 balls until he gloved a catch to the wicketkeeper. After Azhar had been caught at first slip off the deserving Lewry, Ian Salisbury and Jimmy Ormond added 59 more for the ninth wicket.

Salisbury even had the satisfaction of hitting Mushtaq for six as the leg spinner struggled to find his rhythm, but Mushtaq eventually made him his 999th first-class victim.

It was all hard work for Surrey after that, though, as Ward set about showing them — and the England selectors, he hoped — what they were missing. By the close he was unbeaten on 44 and, with Richard Montgomerie, had taken Sussex to 75 without loss.