Surrey'S hopes of lifting a trophy this summer received a dent this week when it was announced that Harbhajan Singh would not be joining the county.

The prolific India off-spinner had been expected to join up with the Brit Oval outfit next week, to help engineer an immediate return to Division One in the LV County Championship.

True to his word, Surrey's professional manager, Chris Adams has opted to use the Pro40 League as a platform for some of the youngsters.

But since promotion in the championship now appears to be beyond the Brown Caps' reach, he may well choose to do likewise for the remainder of the four-day campaign.

With Mark Butcher sidelined, Stewart Walters has wasted no time laying claim to the captaincy on a longer-term basis.

The 26-year-old marked his first match in charge with a maiden first-class hundred, which he followed up with a half-century in last Wednesday's Pro40 clash against Lancashire at Old Trafford.

Walters has also taken the opportunity to promote himself above Usman Afzaal in the batting order, a move that Adams applauds.

Adams said: "I always felt that the captaincy might be the catalyst that brings out the best in Stewie. I thought the toughest hurdles were how he handled the likes of Mark Ramprakash, Usman Afzaal and Andre Nel.

"I said you've just got to be open and honest with Uzzy. You either bat him at five or at four – go and speak to him.

"So he did, he went and had a conversation and Afzaal said: 'Whatever fits with your decision, wherever you're most comfortable, I'll fit around it'.

"Uzzy was happy at five. He's proven that. He's having a great year. For Stewie to go in at four is a good thing.

"From my perspective we've now got Ramprakash and Afzaal either side of Walters, which represents a good balance."

Last week's championship game against Essex at Guildford petered out to a draw, but under Walters's direction the Brown Caps' inexperienced attack had their opponents struggling at 116-5 at one point.

Adams said: "On that first morning we were as good as I've seen this year. It's just a shame we let it go in the afternoon. So, the game panned out as it did.

"For the third time this year, rain has intervened when we were in a good position. But we can't control that, so we're not going to complain about it. It's just a fact, so it ended up being a very boring last day's cricket.

"If I want to get on my soapbox, it emphasises even more the need to do away with bonus points and replace them with points for outright wins and first innings leads.

"We started the morning on 288 to their 401 and there's a reason for people to come and watch, isn't there?

"Even if you take away points for first innings wins, then we would have pulled out, they would have batted, we would either have bowled them out or they would have declared and set us something to chase down. That, to me, is called cricket."

With none of the stars present for Surrey's opening two games in the Pro40 League, the Brown Caps already find themselves propping up Division Two.

But after suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of Middlesex last Sunday, they came within eight runs of chasing down Lancashire's 221-7 under lights three days later. With nine wickets intact, the Brit Oval outfit needed 54 runs off the last eight overs. But the departure of Walters and then Michael Brown, who had put on 146 for the second wicket, pulled the rug from beneath Surrey.

After the match, Walters said: "It was a game that got away in the end, which was a little bit disappointing given the position we had got into. But that's cricket. Someone had to lose and that was us.

"We've got a really young side. There were only two guys who had played here [at Old Trafford] before. We will win more times than we lose in the future."