Essex squared up to Surrey on day one of this four day LV County Championship encounter yesterday.

Surrey won toss and batted first at Castle Park.

By lunch Essex were satisfied with their morning’s work.

They restricted Surrey to 103-3 which included the wicket of the much talked about Mark Ramprakash.

It took the home side just nine deliveries to find the breakthrough when Chris Wright found extra lift and Michael Brown edged the ball to James Foster to depart for a duck with only two runs on the board.

Despite two early boundaries, Ramprakash made a slow stat taking 46 minutes before reaching double figures.

Opener Jon Batty had scored 23 out of 39 when he was caught at first slip pushing forward in Danish Kaneria’s first over.

Stewart Walters then joined Ramprakash in a third wicket stand putting on 66 in 18 overs before David Masters had the former England man caught by Foster for 33 in the penultimate over before lunch.

And Essex’s good work with the ball went on into the afternoon sessions.Essex prising out another couple of Surrey batsmen as the visitors added a further 96 runs in the session.

Surrey captain Stuart Walters was the first wicket to fall after lunch.

He gloved a sharply lifting delivery from Chris Wright to give James Foster his third catch of the innings.

Walters had scored a fluent 41 out of 124 to leave his side 124-4 and the home side were soon celebrating a fifth victim when Usman Afzaal, having scored 17 out of 136, pushed forward to Danish Kaneria and was caught at first slip by Mark Pettini.

Surrey’s progress had slowed during the day with the first 100 runs taking 103 minutes whilst the next 50 runs took 100 minutes.

But the sixth wicket pair of Matt Spriegel and Chris Schofield improved the pace.

In this session they posted an unbroken partnership of 63 runs in 16 overs.

The scoreboard at tea had Surrey on 199-5 from 64 overs (Spriegel 28 n.o Schofield 40no). But this pairing then found their feet and produced a gritty fightback in the face of the Essex bowling attack.

At the end of play on the first day Surrey had pushed their score to 304-6 off 96 overs — a run rate of 3.17 runs per over.