Controversy reigned as Worcestershire were last night denied the chance to tie up their third County Championship win of the season. With bad weather forecast for today, home captain Ben Smith was keen to take the extra half-hour to allow his side to claim the four wickets they needed to complete victory over Surrey. But when the request was made to umpires Peter Hartley and Barry Dudleston, Smith was refused, on the somewhat confusing grounds that, in glorious sunshine and with four men still to prise out (one of them England's Graham Thorpe), Worcestershire did not have a realistic chance of victory. The home side begged to differ. Having exploited a helpful wicket to bowl out Surrey for 155, conditions have so far proved easier second time around. But, at 167 for six, the visitors were still making things look a lot harder than Worcestershire's two centurions - Stephen Moore (146) and Stephen Peters (108) - and half-centurions - Smith (80 not out) and Andrew Hall (53 not out) - had shown. More to the point, Surrey are struggling with injuries. Thorpe, who did not come until his side had five wickets down, is nursing a bad back. His partner, Martin Bicknell, is all but batting on one leg thanks to a groin strain. It is safe to say that Worcestershire were not best pleased with the umpires' decision, especially if the weather does have the final say. Surrey are not the force they were and their body language has suggested they would rather be somewhere else. But this Worcestershire performance has still been impressive and they deserve the bit of luck they now need from the weather today to top it off with 14 points for a win. Having nosed ahead on Thursday night without losing a wicket, Worcestershire's openers continued to rub Surrey noses in it yesterday morning. For those football-minded cricket fans with bad hangovers from events of the night before, who still hanker for the days of '66, this was the perfect tonic...Peters and Moore in perfect harmony. Not that it should have been any real surprise, given their recent form. In three Championship matches, the pair have now hit five hundreds between them. The only surprise was in which order they reached three figures. Peters was on the front row of the grid when he began the day on 92, ahead of Moore on 73. Yet Moore was the more fluent yesterday and got to his second successive century first when he pushed though mid-off for a single, 48 minutes into the session. Peters, by contrast, had to wait another three overs before he got his hundred with a nudge down to third man. But, having taken 167 balls, Peters was the quicker in terms of number of deliveries faced, having taken 19 fewer than Moore. With only one chance given by Peters - to Bicknell on 82 the night before - the pair moved serenely on to 240 for no wicket, within 70 runs of breaking the county's first-wicket record, when Surrey finally managed a breakthrough. The reintroduction of Adam Hollioake saw the home side stutter as, in the space of three balls, he had Peters caught at slip and Graeme Hick caught behind second ball for a duck. Hollioake claimed another when he finally snared the impressive Moore off the bottom edge going for a wide one. But, despite losing Vikram Solanki, also for a duck, in the first over after lunch (400 up and not a run for Hick and Solanki between them), a 130-run unbroken fifth-wicket stand between Smith and Hall ensured maximum batting points for the hosts. An immediate declaration gave 12 overs to bowl at Surrey before tea, without success. But, once Mark Butcher had driven Andy Bichel to extra cover, it was a different story. Hall roared in to take three for ten in one short burst as he had Mark Ramprakash caught behind, bowled Hollioake with a second -ball shooter and finally claimed Scott Newman, after a string of near-misses, trying to whip one through midwicket. Jon Batty looked unhappy with the bat/pad decision that saw him caught at silly point and Brown was trapped lbw by Matt Mason. But just when the end seemed nigh, the umpires, who must read a lot of cliff-hangers in their spare time, had other ideas. | 
