Gary Fellows and Craig White bravely battled through the gloom to revive Yorkshire's chances of beating Surrey in their Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy fourth round tie at Headingley yesterday, the reward for the winners being a home game with Warwickshire in the quarter-finals.
When the umpires decided at eight o'clock that the rain-hit match could not be concluded last night, Yorkshire stood on 131 for four in 29 overs with a further 113 required off 21 overs today to reach their 244 target.
And even if there is no further play because of rain Yorkshire will go through because they are three runs ahead under the Duckworth-Lewis system for calculating rain-hit matches.
It looked bleak for Yorkshire when one of several interruptions during the day took them off at 82 for three with all three of their dismissed batsmen having fallen lbw to Darren Bicknell.
Play did not resume until 7.20pm under brooding skies and Yorkshire's situation worsened even further when Michael Lumb's splendid cameo innings of 30 ended when he miscued a pull at Tim Murtagh and was caught by Ed Giddins at mid-wicket.
But Fellows and White took the attack to Surrey with some bold strokeplay and when captain Adam Hollioake replaced Saqlain Mushtaq after a single over from the Pakistani spinner he was driven and cut for two boundaries by White.
Fellows also played some bold strokes to nudge Yorkshire ahead of the required rate, despite the light being so poor at times that it seemed unfair to continue.
The fifth-wicket pair had added 47 in nine overs when umpires Neil Mallender and John Steele finally decided to call it a day.
Put in to bat, Surrey's last wicket fell to the final ball of their 50 overs and although their score was a challenging one it had looked as if it would be much higher when the England pair of Darren Gough and White were soaking up heavy punishment.
Gough was clattered by Mark Butcher and Ian Ward for 25 from his first two overs and his new ball spell ended after he had gone for 37 in five overs.
He later returned for two further spells but his ten overs cost him 60 runs without gaining a wicket.
White, too, bowled badly for much of the time and he went for 44 from six overs but his figures looked better than Gough's because he picked up Surrey's last three wickets as they chased everything in the closing stages.
The most adventurous innings for Surrey came from Mark Ramprakash.
He slammed 51 off 57 balls with seven boundaries on his return from the hamstring injury which caused him to miss the first Test against Australia.
Although not as dashing as Ramprakash, Ian Ward never looked in much trouble and it was he who held the Surrey innings together until he had made 81 off 121 balls with three fours when he was bowled by a yorker from Ryan Sidebottom.
Chris Silverwood was Yorkshire's best bowler with three for 44 off his ten overs but Sidebottom also did much to restrict Surrey after Gough and White had given them so much.
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