Rory Burns (110) and Zafar Ansari (66) made an unbeaten partnership worth 186 runs for the opening stand as their LV= County Championship match with Lancashire ended in a turgid draw.
Burns made the seventh century of his first-class career as Surrey responded to Lancashire's first-innings total of 429 with a commanding display at The Oval.
The day began with Lancashire on 342/8, needing eight more runs to achieve another batting bonus point and the Red Rose tail-enders played superbly to guide the visitors beyond 350 and latterly 400 for maximum batting points in this fixture.
Fifty-partnerships for the ninth and tenth-wicket stands helped Lancashire to secure a 12-point draw against Surrey, who managed to squeeze one more point than their promotion rivals. Tom Bailey and Kyle Jarvis played vital roles in this early-morning rally, sharing 65 runs for the penultimate wicket, before Jarvis and Simon Kerrigan added a further 52 runs to Lancashire's total.
Jarvis ensured that Lancashire reached 350, smothering Tom Curran to the cover boundary for four as the Zimbabwean continued to demonstrate his credentials as a determined lower-order batsman. He made his highest score of the season, although not the highest of his first-class career, achieving a score of 47 before he was the final wicket to fall in Lancashire's innings.
Bailey levelled his previous-best score of the season when he reached 34 with his fifth boundary, but his wicket saw Surrey claim the third and final bowling bonus point. Gareth Batty (1-60) also claimed his first scalp of the innings, drawing Bailey from his crease, as Foakes whipped off the bails for a routine stumping with the score at 337/9.
Surrey had their full allocation of bonus points from the match, but Lancashire could still extract another point if the last-wicket partnership managed to score another 23 runs. In the end they made light work of this task as Kerrigan picked up where Bailey had left off, guiding his first ball for a boundary down to third man.
Lancashire reached 400/9 in the 107th over and the visitors continued to bat on in a match that had long been anticipated to end in a draw. A combination of rain and idyllic batting conditions made this game one to savour for the batting side and this is what Surrey intended to do after enduring a late rally from Lancashire's batsmen.
Kerrigan thumped Ansari for consecutive sixes over long-on to take him to his best score of the season and the fifty partnership with Jarvis soon followed before he edged behind off Stuart Meaker (3-92) for 47, as Lancashire were bowled out for 429.
All that was left was to see if Surrey could continue the pattern of the game by posting a formidable total before the players eventually shook hands and they did just that as Burns and Ansari made an unbeaten partnership worth 186 runs.
Burns lead the innings and went on to reach an accomplished century, but he was also the first of these two batsmen to reach his half-century. The Surrey opener went to fifty in 74 balls with eight fours and with the hundred-partnership on the board, Ansari had scored only 27 of these runs.
Ansari's patience was eventually rewarded with a fifty of his own, reaching this milestone at a conservative pace of 145 balls. As he was approaching his half-century, Burns was on course to reach three figures and he reached this feat 166 balls with 14 fours in 54th over of the innings.
This should have been a clash between two of the second division's best sides and a battle between some of the best players in county cricket, but the majority of the final day had been working towards the point where the players eventually shook hands, which they did after tea with Surrey's lead extended to 205 runs.
LV= County Championship points: Surrey 13pts, Lancashire 12pts.
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