[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Day Three

Morning: On a Monday of intermittent sunshine, patchy cloud and scattered showers, a watchful start from the openers couldn't save Jake Libby from a blinding one-handed diving catch at wide first slip off the bowling of Hannon-Dalby for 84. Still, Daryl Mitchell made good progress, bringing up his 13,000th first-class run on 96, then completing his 37th first-class century - a first ever against Warwickshire, making Surrey the only remaining county he's never made three figures against - shortly after. Sadly, he perished presently with a flashing drive that was snaffled at backward point for 110 off Craig Miles, and with two fresh batsmen at the crease, Worcestershire were 244-2 at lunch.

Afternoon: On a slow pitch, Tom Fell and Jack Haynes did well to up the scoring rate, each making a half-century before the latter holed out to deep mid-off for 51 attempting to launch Ryan Sidebottom, and the former was yorked by Hannon-Dalby for 55. Riki Wessels came and went for a duck in the same over with an inside edge onto the stumps, and when Brett D'Oliveira was adjudged LBW to Bresnan for 17, a collapse was on the cards. But as they've done in so many white-ball games, Ben Cox and Ed Barnard went on a mission to finish the innings well, earning a fourth batting point with a few balls to spare, nudging the Pears into a first-innings lead, then extending that advantage as quickly as they could until rain curtailed the session with Worcs 378-6.

Evening: Resuming at quarter past four, the 400 came up shortly before Ben Cox perished LBW to Will Rhodes for 43 in the final over, and the reply concluded with Worcestershire 410-7, leading by 55. However, the flat track continued to cause no problems for batsmen in the time remaining, and the Bears reached stumps on 68 without loss, almost certainly the last action we'll see in this rare first-class encounter between the West Midlands rivals as Storm Francis descends. Providing the weather again denies Somerset the two wickets they need for victory at Taunton, a draw is far from the worst outcome here.