Final day: Worcestershire defeated Surrey by two wickets

A rapid 107 from Phil Jaques set up Worcestershire's first Liverpool Victoria County Championship win of the season as they beat Surrey in an astonishing run chase at the Oval.

Set 285 to win from 62 overs, they were 95 for no wicket when rain wiped out 30 overs yet they still overhauled their target with one ball and two wickets in hand.

Stephen Moore made 57 in an opening stand of 171 with Australian Jaques and Ben Smith, with 47 not out, got Worcestershire up near to their target before Zaheer Khan hit Nayan Doshi, who took ten wickets in the match, for six off the penultimate ball.

Coach Steve Rhodes said: "I'm proud of the lads. It's not often you win games after conceding 500 runs in the first innings, then you're almost made to follow on.

"But this was a real team effort. And, coming on top of our win in the C&G at Leicester last week, I'm hopeful this will really get the season going for us.

"Stephen Moore helped Jaquesie give us the sort of start we could not have expected by putting on 90 from the first nine overs.

"That gave us a good air of confidence, from which point Ben Smith did a great job seeing us through.

"It was particularly heartening to see Ben back to his best like that, finishing things off. But it was all the other little contributions down the order that counted for a lot too. Especially at the end when Zaheer comes in needing four to win off two balls and he hits it many a mile over midwicket for six to win us the match, over the longest boundary too."

Jaques, in his first Worcestershire match this season, faced 64 balls and hit 14 fours and two sixes and made Surrey pay for some poor bowling before the first rain break.

After the interruption Surrey went on the defensive, setting eight or nine men back on the boundaries, but Jaques still found a way through until he holed out to Ian Salisbury.

Salisbury and Doshi both took two wickets in two balls to set Worcestershire back but Smith ensured they were always in touch and they needed nine off the last over.

Ray Price hit Doshi for four of the second ball before being caught in the deep, Smith ran a leg bye then Zaheer smashed the first ball he received into the stands.

Surrey's bowlers handed in some sorry figures - Azhar Mahmood conceded 79 runs in ten overs, Doshi's four wickets cost 68 runs in 7.5 overs, Mohammad Akram went for 53 from six and Salisbury went for 60 off seven.

Rikki Clarke's solitary over cost Surrey 22 runs.

Worcestershire had started the day needing 38 runs ito avoid the follow-on but were in trouble immediately when Kabir Ali had a slash at Salisbury, Price went first ball and Zaheer, after a couple of meaty blows, became Doshi's sixth wicket of the innings when he was caught driving for 18.

At 349 for nine, they were still three runs shy of the follow-on but Steve Davies got them past that mark, and himself to 61 not out by hitting Salisbury to the fence and Vikram Solanki promptly declared, 148 runs in arrears.

The captains had clearly got their heads together to thrash out some sort of run chase and, after the early loss of James Benning, Surrey went for their shots and when Mark Butcher was third man out for 20, they were 41 for three from four overs.

Azhar and Clarke hit some big shots against some extremely friendly bowling to take the total up to 136 with Azhar finishing 40 not out from 15 balls.

Clarke was even more destructive - his 57 not out came from 23 balls and included five sixes - and Butcher called time on the innings shortly after lunch.

Moore's three overs cost him 61 and Smith conceded 39 runs in his three-over stint.