Marcus Hook’s Surrey CCC column: The value of a draw has increased – the key in the County Championship is not to lose
BY MARCUS HOOK
What a difference a week makes. Seven days after the ignominy of losing to Middlesex at Lord’s, Surrey were celebrating one of the biggest wins in their history.
Hampshire, came into the contest at the Oval heading Group Two, only to be trounced by an innings and 289 runs with career bests from Jordan Clark (6-21) and Kemar Roach (8-40) sandwiching a superlative 215 from Hashim Amla and Ollie Pope’s 131.
Pope averages 105.61 at the Oval, but the most pleasing aspect was Amla finding form for the first time this season. You want your overseas players to be difference makers and Amla and Roach were just that.
Roach had also experienced a lean time, but he and Clark more than made up for the absence of Reece Topley, who was rested again. Clark has taken 14 wickets this season, Roach 13 and Topley 10 (in just two outings).
It’s now a question of dishing out the same treatment against Leicestershire. On paper, it shouldn’t be difficult, given that Chris Wright is the only member of the Foxes attack currently averaging fewer than 50 runs a wicket.
With the number of points available for a draw having increased from five to eight, the key thing is not to lose games. In Group One, where five points separate fifth from top, Worcestershire are third, despite not having registered a victory. That’s why Surrey’s defeat at Lord’s two weeks ago was such a big blow.
It was interesting to hear that Roach believes the County Championship is the nearest thing you can get to Test cricket.
But if the first four weeks of the season is anything to go by there are some unfamiliar names topping the run scoring and wicket taking charts.
Can anyone really envisage the likes of Yorkshire opener Adam Lyth (515 runs at an average of 73.57) returning to the England fold on current form? Likewise, Somerset fast bowler Craig Overton (25 wickets at 14.60) taking the new ball for the first time in two years in an England shirt?
But what the make-up of this season’s championship does offer up (with eight of the 14 rounds falling before we get to June) is the chance for someone to rack up 1,000 first-class runs by the end of May – a feat that was last accomplished by Graeme Hick back in 1988.
Lyth along with Durham’s South African import David Bedingham (567 runs) are on course, but Surrey’s Ollie Pope (452 at 75.33) is also very much in the hunt.
PICTURES: KEITH GILLARD
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