Rothesay County Championship, The Kia Oval (day four)

Surrey 421: Lawrence 218 & 259-5 dec Sibley 105*, Lawrence 101

Hampshire 333: Potgieter 84*; Clark 4-64 & 101-2: Orr 53*

Surrey (15 pts) drew with Hampshire (13 pts)

Match scorecard

Dan Lawrence added a dismissive 64-ball 101 to his first-innings 218 from 190 balls but not even his batting heroics could prevent Surrey’s weather-hit match against Hampshire at the Kia Oval from being drawn.

With 92 overs lost in all to bad weather over the first three days, it was always going to be difficult for Surrey to force victory after starting the final day 145 runs ahead on 57-2 in their second innings.

But at least Lawrence’s remarkable hundred, which featured five sixes and seven fours, plus a fine unbeaten 105 by Dom Sibley, gave them a chance to declare at 259-5 at lunch to leave Hampshire a fourth innings target of 348 in 64 overs.

They finished on 101-2, content to bat out time after a new-ball burst of 6-4-10-2 by Reece Topley left them wobbling on 19-2.

Ali Orr and Jake Lehmann, though, then stayed together for 34 overs either side of tea to put on an unbroken 82 for Hampshire’s third wicket.

Opener Orr ended 53 not out from 121 balls and Lehmann an unbeaten 26 from 103, with hands shaken at 17:00 BST with 20 overs remaining un-bowled.

Surrey thought they might have had Lehmann leg-before on two when off-spinner Will Jacks slid one on with the arm into the left-hander’s pads from around the wicket, but the Australian survived.

And the only other scares came when Lehmann, on six, edged Jordan Clark over Rory Burns’ hands at first slip when he drove flat-footedly at the seamer and just before tea Tom Curran swung a full ball into Orr’s pads but did not win the appeal.

Lawrence became only the second player in County Championship history to score both a double hundred and hundred at better than a run a ball in the same game, following Graeme Hick for Worcestershire against Glamorgan at Abergavenny in 1990.

He is also only just the third Surrey batsman, after Mark Ramprakash in 2010 and Scott Newman in 2005, to hit a double hundred and hundred in the same first-class match.

Lawrence’s thrilling assault helped Surrey to rack up 202 runs in 32 overs during a morning session in which Hampshire’s only focus was to get their over rate up into positive territory – so as to avoid any points deduction – while also trying their best to stem the scoring rate.

Resuming on 57-2, Surrey lost nightwatchman Matt Fisher for 12 when he hit Felix Organ’s off spin straight to short mid wicket and Lawrence, joining Sibley, was immediately into his stride.

Unquestionably in prime form after his magnificent first innings 218, and the unbeaten 94 he scored in Surrey’s narrow T20 Blast defeat against Hampshire last Friday evening, Lawrence took just 35 balls to reach his half-century.

Organ, as in Surrey’s first innings, suffered at his hands with several sixes disappearing over the legside boundary but it was James Fuller’s fast-medium which brought the most extraordinary of Lawrence’s stream of sweetly-struck strokes.

Crouching down on to one knee, Lawrence simply flicked a ball that was at least a couple of feet outside his off stump to deep square leg for another six. It took him to 88 and, by then, Hampshire’s bowlers were finding it almost impossible to bowl to him.

After he fell to Delano Potgieter, after 21 overs of mayhem, Ollie Pope was caught on the deep mid wicket ropes for a single and it was Sam Curran who stayed with Sibley until he completed his own hundred with perhaps the best two shots of his entire innings.

In the penultimate over before lunch Sibley pulled Potgieter for six to go to 96 and then, next ball, drove him powerfully through cover to beat two fielders patrolling the long boundary side of the ground. Curran by then had also pulled Potgieter for six.

Hampshire’s 13 point haul was enough to lift them off the foot of the Division One table while Surrey are up to second with their 15 points, though both sides have played a game more than their rivals.

Report supplied by the ECB Reporters’ Network, supported by Rothesay.