There are many things that people will tell you are the highlights of a year. Birthdays, wedding anniversaries, Christmas and New Year would feature in a lot of these lists but they would all be wrong. There is only one real highlight worth mentioning, it is the first full day's cricket at the Oval.

There is an argument for saying the Oval is not the loveliest cricket ground in the world and certainly compared with Arundel or some festival grounds there may be some truth in that. However The Oval is the real home of English cricket as any Surrey supporter will tell you.

The irrelevant intrusion of a bit part player having been disposed of via a run out at the start Essex soon set about clouding my mood to match the sky.

Hussain and Law while not ever looking like racing away with the game were seldom troubled by the accurate pace bowling from Bicknell and Tudor on this almost perfect pitch and found the space to push singles in many parts of the arena. Giddins and in particular Gary Butcher, playing in place of yesterday's Gold Award winner Ben Hollioake, were sufficiently wayward to make life appear easy and the score accelerated past 100, with the Australian discard and the England captain trading the lead in the race to well deserved fifties.

Salisbury's arrival seemed to cause unwarranted glee from Law and before mis-hitting the leg spinner to Ali Brown at midwicket he had attempted several times to smash the ball into the disappointingly under-populated seating square of the wicket, with noticably little contact, Salisbury on an Oval pitch in a county match is not the same as the Salisbury we saw in Pakistan.

Hussain continued in fine style with subdued support from Irani before misjudging one of Adam Hollioake's bag of tricks. After failing to find length or line against Hampshire the Surrey captain could not be faulted on either score today. None of the Essex middle order attempting to push the rate could judge his pace reliably and wickets fell in a rush, not helped by the comical runout of the captain, both batsmen having been almost safe at the batsman's end, both decided to run for the bowler's and fell short by at least 8 yards.

Cowan played sensibly to guide his team to a score that, while certainly well short of what looked likely with Hussain and Law together, would at least give the bowlers something to defend. Despite a slow outfield the general consensus of both home and away supporters was that 270 would have been a more realistic target.

Ian Ward started the innings in the manner of a man who has spent the winter dismissing bowling attacks to all corners. Helped in this endeavour by some woeful misfields and a ludicrous three overthrows before touching a ball from Irani through to the keeper, as far as I can remember this is the first I have seen of Hyam keeping, looks tidy enough though he may have kerbed Ward's aggression had he stood up to the two Essex opening bowlers as Stewart had to the similarly paced Surrey fourth and fifth seamers.

Wards fall brought the even more in form Ramprakash to the wicket to join Stewart. These two made the earlier partnership between the Essex numbers two and three seem pedestrian, scoring more or less at will either side of the wicket before the introduction of some very unthreatening "spin" bowling seemed to leave Stewart becalmed as so often before. Ramprakash did not fall into the same trap as Suart Law and looked at each bowler before deciding which balls to hit. In Napier's case the decision seemed to be "most of them".

With the gap between the Duckworth Lewis par score and the actual total approaching 40 Stewart tried to join the party and was well caught on the boundary forward of square leg. Mason can thank his captain's field placing not just for the wicket, but for saving six runs. Sadly for Essex dismissing one Surrey test batsman usually just means another comes in.

Thorpe maybe didn't realise there were still plenty of overs to go, or perhaps his tea was getting cold, because he immediately injected urgency into the running and then decided his first proper hit should be into the crowd at point, another boundary catch from Mason's bowling. Another wicket, another international batsman and another acceleration in run-rate.

Brown clearly did not intend to leave Ramprakash to collect an easy hundred. At Hampshire's new Rose Bowl he had struggled to come to terms with a very slow damp wicket, this was much more to his liking. As ever he turned singles to twos, twos to threes, and good balls into boundaries. With five runs needed from four overs he simply missed a rare straight ball from A C McGarry (had his parents been Camberwick Green fans they would have named him Paul or Patrick).

Gary Butcher taking a single from the first ball he faced would Ramps be cute and try to manufacture the runs he needed? The answer was simple, No. The first chance he got he hit a four and jogged off to collect a well earned Benson and Hedges Gold Award.

© CricInfo Ltd 2001