Yorkshire showed on the first day of their first-class season at Headingley yesterday that they have a long way to go before they hit the sort of form which is required to hold on to the Championship title.

They were thoroughly outclassed by Surrey, who are already in a strong position to go on to win their second consecutive match.

New captain Darren Lehmann confessed in the run-up to the new season that the bowling so far looked "under done" but the batsmen also appeared pretty raw as they managed only 140 after being put in.

Mark Butcher and Ian Ward, Surrey's two left-handed openers, then set off at a cracking pace and at the close had put on 115 without being in the slightest trouble.

Rarely have Yorkshire started their season under bluer skies or warmer sunshine and a healthy crowd of at least 3,000 turned out to see them off - and prove that county cricket still has a healthy following when the weather is right.

But the mean new-ball pairing of Martin Bicknell and Alex Tudor soon had Yorkshire concentrating hard on survival and the pattern was set in the sixth over when Matthew Wood edged a drive at Tudor and was well caught in the slips by Bicknell moving smartly to his right.

Surrey maintained an arc of men in the slip and gully positions throughout the innings and Yorkshire obligingly provided them with plenty of catching practice.

The most promising innings was played by Michael Lumb, who has scored a century in his last two knocks at Headingley, and demonstrated once again that he is a left-hander of rare quality and fine temperament.

Although runs were difficult to come by, Lumb twice found the boundary with strong drives and had moved on comfortably to 30 when he shaped to play Tudor on the leg side but the ball climbed on him and he top-edged a catch to Alec Stewart.

Like Scott Richardson before him, Lumb had done all the hard work before getting out and wickets continued to fall just when batsmen were looking well set.

The real body blow came soon after lunch when Lehmann flicked Bicknell wristily off his hips but straight into the hands of Mark Ramprakash at square leg. Lehmann, in his 200th first-class match, had provided Bicknell with his 900th first-class wicket and two years' ago the Australian had become his 800th victim.

Right down to the last pair of Ryan Sidebottom and Steven Kirby, Yorkshire never threw in the towel but neither did they deal any body blows of their own to a four-man Surrey pace attack in which Tudor and Azhar Mahmood excelled to claim seven wickets between them.

Butcher and Ward tore strips off Chris Silverwood and Kirby from the start of the Surrey innings and the 50 stand used up only 5.3 overs, Kirby being replaced by Sidebottom after giving away 28 runs in three overs.

The openers remained firmly in charge, Ward completing his 50 off 90 balls and Butcher getting there in the following over off 91.