County Championship: Stokes & Onions bowl Durham to win over Surrey and safety

Surrey's Jason Roy warmed up for Saturday's One-Day Cup final with 216 runs in the match, yet finished on the losing side

Durham ensured County Championship Division One safety as they kept their nerve to beat One-Day Cup finalists Surrey by 21 runs at Chester-le-Street.

After resuming on 213-8, the hosts added another 33 before being bowled out for 246, leaving Surrey 281 to win.

Teenager Sam Curran improved his career-best from the third day, taking the final wicket to end with 7-58.

Despite Jason Roy's 96, Ben Stokes (4-54) and Graham Onions (3-62) then helped to bowl out Surrey for 259.

Mark Wood did the early damage, striking with the fifth ball of his first over and the first of his second to remove Dom Sibley and Kumar Sangakkara for ducks.

Onions, who had taken 5-90 in Surrey's first innings, then sent back Rory Burns to leave the visitors on 11-3 before Roy and Zafar Ansari began to turn things around.

Having put on 164 for the fourth wicket in the first innings, this time their stand reached 143 before Ansari (51) was trapped leg before by leg-spinner Scott Borthwick, who will be his Surrey team-mate next season.

Roy, who had earlier been close to edging Brydon Carse's first ball of the day, then became Stokes' first victim before another fighting stand of 54 for the sixth wicket between Curran (50 not out) and Ben Foakes (20).

Stokes struck twice in three balls to remove Foakes and Tom Curran, before a 30-run eighth-wicket stand between Sam Curran and skipper Gareth Batty.

But Stokes got rid of Batty before Onions polished it all off with the final two scalps, the last three wickets having gone down for just seven runs.

Last man Mark Footitt who had taken 5-90 in the first innings, had earlier taken the other morning wicket to fall, his haul of seven in the match leaving him with 31 from six Championship matches since being recalled after injury in July.

What happens next?

Durham rise to fifth in the table, four points behind Surrey, who they can now overtake if they can pick up four points from their meeting with relegation-threatened Hampshire at the Ageas Bowl.

Having now completed their Championship programme, Surrey's final game of the campaign is Saturday's One-Day Cup final against Warwickshire at Lord's.

Durham all-rounder Ben Stokes:

"Colly was going to take me off the over before I got Gareth Batty out, but I just felt in one of those moods when everything was clicking.

"I was running up to the crease nice and easy and it was coming out nicely, so I didn't want to give the ball up.

"I felt in decent rhythm and it was just one of those days when everything was going well for me.

"Pressure tells in a situation like that, batting last and trying to chase a total, and fortunately myself, Graham and Woody managed to bowl really well and restrict them."

Surrey skipper Gareth Batty told BBC Radio London:

"I don't feel we lost the game today particularly, I thought we batted magnificently, I felt we lost it in the first couple of days by allowing them a few too many boundary balls.

"It was a proper game of cricket played by proper players. I didn't see it as heated, it was just very good players going hammer and tongs at each other.

"That's what we play Division One cricket for. Unfortunately we were just on the wrong end of it. It could have gone either way.

"We made enough good, positive strides today to win the game, but it wasn't to be, a world-class all-rounder like Stokes had a day out and bowled beautifully, they have a good attack."