Red Rose enjoy better of rain-affected day at The Oval

Lancashire made good progress on Day One of their trip to The Oval reducing Surrey to 144/4 as just 46 overs were possible on a rain-affected day in Kennington. 

Surrey were reduced to 51/3 as the visitors removed Kumar Sangakkara (10) and Kevin Pietersen (2) cheaply in the space of nine balls either side of tea. Lancashire won the toss, inserting the home side on a typically flat Oval wicket, but the Division Two leaders claimed wickets at regular intervals against one of their biggest rivals for promotion this season.

An unbeaten 71-run partnership between Steven Davies (41*) and Jason Roy (21*) restored parity before close of play, as a combination of rain and bad light reduced the number of overs on offer in this top of the table clash.

Tom Bailey claimed the first wicket of the match to continue a strong start to the season as he encouraged Rory Burns to nick behind to Alex Davies for 12 with the score at 26/1. Such is the quality of Surrey's line-up, Lancashire were punished for this early breakthrough by the arrival of the first of Surrey's blockbuster batsman, Kumar Sangakkara.

He and Zafar Ansari (37) negotiated a tough spell of bowling including an economical start from overseas singing, James Faulkner. The Australian steamed in with a great deal of pace and made life difficult for Ansari who took a blow to the stomach early on to make his task that much harder.

Lancashire had Sangakkara back in the pavilion for just 10 runs as Clark claimed a prized wicket.

In the final over before tea, Jordan Clark - playing in only his sixth first-class match for Lancashire - claimed without question the most cherished wicket of his short career so far, forcing Sanagakkara to hook to Faulkner at long leg. The Sri-Lankan Test ace, by comparison, has played in 229 first-class matches in his career, but his mistimed stroke gave Clark his 13th wicket of the season, as he continues to impress in the absence of Tom Smith.

With this wicket, yet another cricketing celebrity came to the crease in the form of Pietersen, who got off the mark with his first delivery, guiding a single down to fine leg. The England outcast repeated this shot to take Surrey to 50/2 after tea, but he could do little about a cracker of a delivery from the leading wicket-taker in Division Two, Kyle Jarvis.

A touch of away-swing deceived the former England captain, edging the ball to Paul Horton at first slip, who took a sharp catch as Lancashire claimed the wickets of Pietersen and Sangakkara in the space of nine deliveries, the scoreboard now reading 51/3.

After taking that blow to the stomach, Ansari had been subjected to a fair amount of short bowling from Lancashire and he was next to go when he edged Jarvis to Horton, again at first slip, although this was a much more routine catch for Horton, as the Surrey opener fell for 37.

Surrey were experiencing a rare batting collapse on home soil, but the efforts of Davies and Roy ensured that Lancashire were kept at bay for the rest of the day. Davies - who has surrendered wicketkeeping duties to focus on his batting - led the recovery, hitting Jarvis for four boundaries in succession to take him towards a half-century.

These two scored at a damaging rate, reaching a fifty partnership in inside only eight overs, as Surrey closed on 145/4, a far more respectable total than they could have expected after the early loss of their superstar batsmen.