Surrey continued their irrepressible charge towards the Division One title with a facile innings and 60-run defeat of Hampshire at The Oval.

Two balls short of eight overs were bowled on the final morning with Ian Salisbury taking the two wickets Surrey needed to earn them an eighth win of the Championship season.

Hampshire added 23 runs in a trivial period of cricket that was made even more hollow for them when Dimitri Mascarenhas failed by just six runs to hit a third first-class ton.

Robin Smith's side face a nerve-wracking end of season with relegation now a real possibility.

Surrey's lead is such that their closest pursuers must count on them losing all of their remaining three matches to even stand a chance of enacting an upset.

On the evidence of this match - and indeed of all season - that looks almost an impossibility.

Surrey dominated from the outset, Saqlain Mushtaq proving much too crafty at this level to take two five-wicket hauls as Hampshire were knocked over for 190 and 326.

But the find of the match was Scott Newman, the 22-year-old opener who fell just one run short of making a century on his first-class debut.

If the depth of Surrey's squad sends shivers down the spines of their opponents, so it should.

Surrey: I J Ward, J N Batty (Wkt), M R Ramprakash, N Shahid, A D Brown, A J Hollioake (Capt), S A Newman, M P Bicknell, Saqlain Mushtaq, I D K Salisbury, J Ormond.

Hampshire: N C Johnson, J S Laney, W S Kendall, R A Smith (Capt), J D Francis, N Pothas (Wkt), L R Prittipaul, A D Mascarenhas, S D Udal, J R C Hamblin, J A Tomlinson.

Umpires: N A Mallender and A G T Whitehead