Andrew Strauss hits half-century as Middlesex fight back against Surrey

As Andrew Strauss stood at slip and watched Mark Ramprakash score 223 for Surrey in the London derby, it must have gradually dawned on him over the nine-and-a-half hours that elapsed that Surrey batsman had scored about as many championship runs in one innings as he had all season. Strauss was an in a not-so-unfamiliar situation as he opened Middlesex's innings in reply to Surrey's 490, an England captain searching for form with a Test series barely a week away. A second half-century of the season, with the chance to add more tomorrow, should remove any disquiet. And anyway, he might privately assure himself there will be stiffer challenges than Bangladesh at Lord's. Remember the excitable suggestions that Surrey were on the verge of signing Brian Lara? It has not come to pass. Surrey announced today that their talks with Lara have "not come to fruition" and that the West Indies batsman will not be joining them for Twenty20. They have announced the signing, however, of the Pakistan batsman Younis Khan, who will play for them in all competitions, teaming up with Australian Andrew Symonds in Twenty20. But the Indian leg-spinner Piyush Chawla has been refused permission to play county cricket by the Indian board. The hostility of the BCCI towards English county cricket could not be more pointed. Strauss was cosseted on a flat Oval surface. Andre Nel huffed and puffed one past his outside edge in his opening over and it was his fellow left-hander, Scott Newman, 79 not out at the close, who began more fluently. For an England captain who was not part of World Twenty20, and must be feeling slightly out of the loop, these were comforting runs nonetheless. Ramprakash now has 16 double hundreds, fifth on the all-time list alongside Hobbs, CB Fry and Graeme Hick. Above him are Herbert Sutcliffe 17, Patsy Hendren 22, Wally Hammond 36 and Don Bradman 37.