US Edition
Surrey are a rarity – a truly great county side
County Matters: Surrey have advantages compared to other counties but has leveraged those to great effect in over two dominant seasons
A few of Surrey’s cricketers are nipping off on holiday on Thursday, resting up for one final push in this year’s County Championship. With a bye next week, they head into the final two rounds on the brink not only of back-to-back titles, and their third under Rory Burns’ captaincy, but of securing their status as a great modern-day county side.
In the two-division era, three teams have won the Championship back-to-back: Sussex (2006-07, as well as 2003), Durham (2008-09, and again in 2013) and Yorkshire (2014-15). Surrey’s last great team, won the title in 1999, 2000 (the year promotion and relegation was introduced), and again in 2002. Essex are unlucky to miss out on this club, having won the title in 2017 and 2019, then the only available red-ball trophy, the Bob Willis Trophy, in 2020.
Essex remain a formidable team, and have evolved impressively while keeping the same core of the Cooks, Alastair and Sam, Tom Westley, Simon Harmer, and Jamie Porter. This year, they are Surrey’s closest challengers and it is a great shame – and blot on the County Championship generally – that they will not play each other twice, just as Surrey and Hampshire met only once last year. That is the problem with having 10 teams in the top division, and just 14 matches. As ever, it is a fudge.
Essex polished off Middlesex on Wednesday for a sixth-straight win. They also have a bye next week, meaning Surrey enter the final two rounds with a 17-point advantage. A quirk of the schedule sees Essex play third-placed Hampshire then cellar dwellers Northamptonshire, while Surrey play Northamptonshire then Hampshire. It could be done with a week to spare, but Surrey – via vice-captain Ben Foakes – were keen to stress that the race is “far from over” after they drubbed Warwickshire, once considered title rivals, at the Oval this week.
Surrey were quietly furious when, in 2019, they failed to back up the previous season’s Championship win. They were poor that summer, winning just twice and finishing sixth of eight as senior players underperformed and international call-ups loomed. The malaise continued during the pandemic, for similar reasons. When they won the title again in 2022, they vowed not to fall away at least not fall away so spectacularly; whatever happens in the final fortnight, they have delivered on that.
Surrey’s success will be celebrated by few outside the county, because they possess some handy natural advantages. The Oval’s location in the heart of the capital has helped its transformation into a commercial behemoth. That, combined with the lure of Test tickets, has contributed to a booming membership (at 19,000, they make up almost half of all county members now), which only deepens the coffers.
As we observed last week, deep pockets helps in a number of ways. Sure, they pay players well, but it also means they can look after them in a manner that makes Surrey the destination club across the country; just look at Dan Lawrence’s move from Essex. It means they are always able to pluck an overseas player, be that a repeat returner like Kemar Roach (who wonderfully deferentially refers to the director of cricket as Mr Stewart) or the Indian starlet Sai Sudharsan, who could not even break into the team this week.
It also helps fund a truly superb academy which, for all the talk about Surrey signing players, is the most reliable production line in the country. How’s this for an academy-produced XI for red-ball cricket (which Jason Roy and Laurie Evans no longer play): Burns, Sibley, Pope, Patel, Smith, Jacks, Curran, Curran, Lawes, Atkinson, Virdi. That includes six Test players, two more (Smith and Atkinson) of the near future, while Lawes could break in, too. That side would compete well in Division One, you’d think.
Some title-winning teams – and Essex of 2017 and 2019 spring to mind here – do it with a truly outstanding core of players that does not change much match to match. For Surrey, with England calls and IPL absences de rigeur, it is about the triumph of the squad. Last year, they used 23 players. This time, it is 18 and counting. For the final two games, they will be missing, due to injury or England: Pope, Jacks, Smith, S.Curran and Atkinson. Sudharsan might even get a game.
Surrey have a vaunted home-grown batting line-up but, really, it is their relentless right-arm seam attack, pulled together from all over the world, which has put them in charge again this season. Melburnian Dan Worrall, Cumbrian Jordan Clark, Barbadian Roach, Devonian Jamie Overton, and Sydneysider Sean Abbott have combined beautifully with Atkinson and Lawes, five at a time, to bowl teams out even when conditions are unkind. That they all bat gives the impression that Surrey just keep coming at you. “It’s pretty easy for me as captain when I’ve got a bowling attack as good as ours,” Burns says.
That combination, of premier destination and home-reared, is hard to beat for the rest of the county game. They are well-placed to go back-to-back, but might be after a bit more than that.