A RAIN-DELAYED start on Thursday meant that no play was possible until 2.30pm and after a promising beginning Surrey found themselves up against things at the close of play.
Four late quick wickets for only seven runs, saw Surrey finish on a score of 269-7 still another 362 runs behind Warwickshire.
There was no hint of what was to come early in the day.
Following Surrey's example previously with Jade Dernbach,Warwickshire used a substitute bowler released by England of their own to good effect throughout the day, when Boyd Rankin lined up as a replacement for Tom Milnes.
The tall fast bowler would finish the day with figures of 3-42 off of nine overs, and made a difference for Warwickshire.
Surrey started brightly enough with Burns and Harinath carrying on in good form from where they left off late on Thursday, the former of the two perishing early for 34 though with Surrey on 69 at the time, a catch from Rikki Clarke off of Keith Barker's ball.
Following this Vikram Solanki arrived at the crease and set about steadying things with Harinath. The pair added another hundred to the score with replacement Captain Solanki playing some nicely timed no nonsense balls to the boundary scoring 14 fours in total. He was to perish though with literally the last ball of the over before tea, going lbw for 69 to Ateeq Javid.
This lead Ricky Ponting to the crease in at four and he didn't disappoint anyone with a series of well taken strokes intelligently placed in the field and finishing the day unbeaten on 50, including six fours and one six.
Harinath then fell after playing his part well, when he went in the 64th over of the day, playing a mistimed shot that was easily caught by Jim Troughton at cover point around head height.
What followed that could only be described as a series of disappointments.
Zander De Bruyn was next in and fell for 17, clean bowled by a good ball from Rankin.
At this point Surrey were now 262-4 with six overs play remaining for the day. Surprisingly Stuart Meaker arrived as nightwatchman, an idea that had mistake written all over it. Meaker is not known for his batting and to ask him to survive six overs with the dangerous Rankin looking deadly was a mistake.
So it proved when he was promptly clean bowled by the same man after only two balls.
Surrey then sent in Gary Wilson who should have done better, but fell lbw to the same bowler after only another two balls.
Jason Roy was next, and having not looked in form of late for Surrey, looked nervous and unsure of himself as he faced Rankin. Only 17 balls later after scoring two runs he offered up his wicket with a shot to cover that was well taken by a diving Troughton catch.
That was the last ball of the day and Surrey finished with only three wickets remaining for the last morning of play,still over 200 behind the follow on point and looking in a precarious position on the final day's play ahead.
