Dawid Malan hit his first century of the season as Middlesex enjoyed the best of the second day at Lord’s.
Malan and skipper James Franklin (63 from 67 balls) added an unbroken 92 for the sixth wicket to cut Surrey’s first-innings lead to a modest 17, as the hosts closed on 296-5.
Earlier, Surrey had been bowled out for 313, losing their final five wickets for 48 runs inside the first 90 minutes of the day.
Centurion Kumar Sangakkara started the demise, perishing to the 12th delivery of the morning as he picked out Ollie Rayner at gully off Franklin.
In his next over, Franklin induced a nick from Sam Curran, whose brother Tom gave Rayner another catch off, this time off Toby Roland-Jones.
Surrey skipper Gareth Batty, alongside Stuart Meaker, took the visitors to a third batting bonus point before he skied a Tom Helm lifted to mid-on, where Steven Finn took an excellent tumbling catch.
In reply, Middlesex openers Nick Compton and Nick Gubbins added just 20 before the latter was lbw to Sam Curran.
Another left-armer, Mark Footitt, produced a beauty to account for Compton, who edged to the keeper, before Stevie Eskinazi was dropped on 29 at second slip by Scott Borthwick.
Undaunted by his good fortune, the South Africa-born batsman continued to go for his shots in moving to a 64-ball 50 with nine fours.
He eventually departed for 67 after feathering a Footitt leg-cutter to the keeper, having added 100 for the third wicket with Malan.
Borthwick then made amends for his earlier blunder by holding an overhead chance to see off Adam Voges (9) while Footitt stuck for a third time by trapping John Simpson leg before.
That brought together James Franklin and Malan, who survived through to stumps.
This post was last modified on 21/05/2017