County Championship: Jason Roy century puts Surrey in command

Jason Roy's hundred against Lancashire was the sixth first-class century of his career

Jason Roy hit a career-best 143 to put Surrey in control of their Division Two match with Lancashire at The Oval.

Roy, who started day two on 21 not out, reached his century after just 70 minutes of play and scored 111 runs in the morning session alone.

He was caught at gully off Ryan Jarvis, ending a fifth-wicket stand of 236 with Steven Davies, who edged a rising ball from Tom Bailey to slip to fall for 86.

Bad light and then rain brought an early conclusion with Surrey on 435-8.

Only three overs were possible after tea before the weather intervened, with the hosts having already guaranteed maximum batting bonus points.

Wicketkeeper Ben Foakes, making his Surrey debut after joining from Essex, finished unbeaten on 60.

Roy continued his excellent form with the bat, having scored 60 not out to help Surrey to a three-wicket win at Kent on 27 May and 140 against Northants six days earlier.

His aggressive innings, which contained 19 fours and two sixes, advanced the game significantly after the first day was limited to only 46 overs because of rain.

Steven Davies has scored two fifties and two hundreds in nine Championship innings in 2015

Surrey batsman Jason Roy told BBC London 94.9: "Myself and Steven Davies worked hard last night to make sure I was in overnight, and we came in today and reaped the rewards.

"The game plan was just to bat, to be honest. I didn't have a pre-conceived idea of what I wanted to do. I just wanted to go out there, enjoy myself and put on a big score.

"The way I went about it last night, and then today as well, it's probably my best knock."

Lancashire head coach Ashley Giles: "It's been a good day for Surrey. We would have started the day with high hopes of making early inroads, but we didn't do that.

"We talked about hitting our lines and lengths consistently. Perhaps some of the time we didn't do that and against someone like Jason, he's a dangerous player.

"If we play well, we'll be fine. When we start batting with them 430 on the board, maybe 450, we've got to look to bat long."