Marcus Hook’s Surrey CCC column: Win over Hampshire could make all the difference in final County Championship shakedown

Surrey remain top of Division One despite not playing in last week’s round of County Championship games, which will no doubt fill them with confidence going into the Vitality Blast.

Essex did the Oval outfit a massive favour by brushing Lancashire aside with a day to spare at Old Trafford. That result means Hampshire have retaken second spot.

Surrey’s victory over Hampshire, who are now just two points behind the South Londoners, last month could make all the difference at the end of the season, especially when you bear in mind that the two sides won’t meet again due to the vagaries of the championship schedule.

With 10 teams in Division One, it’s no longer a case of everyone playing each other twice.

The key matches to come for Surrey are home and away to third-placed Yorkshire.

Lancashire, who have dropped to fourth, only play the Oval outfit once – in the final round of games – likewise fifth-placed Essex, whose solitary clash with Surrey is at the Oval, where the South Londoners have won all three.

A strong start in the Vitality Blast will be equally important, especially as Surrey begin their T20 campaign with a trio of home fixtures.

In recent years, Surrey’s blueprint for success in SE11 has been to push the boundary rope back as far as possible and prepare turning wickets. There hasn’t been a 200-plus total at the Oval in T20 since 2019, and the highest first innings score at the ground in 2021 was Middlesex’s 174-7 – all of which makes for close, exciting cricket.

A feature of Surrey’s cricket this summer has been their ability to bat all the way down. Although there’ll be no Foakes and no Pope when the Blast gets underway, due to the England v New Zealand Test series, the middle and lower order is packed with bowlers who know how to swing the bat.

There were few tears shed when it was announced that Tom Harrison will be stepping down as the chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board next month.

Even though it means both of the key positions at the ECB – those of the chair and the chief exec – will be occupied by interim appointments at a time when the domestic game is looking for leadership, the consensus was that Harrison’s seven-year tenure had more than run its course.

The television deal he negotiated with Sky Sports and the BBC for a five-year period from 2020 to 2024 was worth £1.1billion, but what came with it was The Hundred, which was forced through in a way that further weakened the influence of the 18 first-class counties.

Since 2018, the counties have not had a seat on the ECB board – they used to have two – which is now made up of independent directors. Only one, Lucy Pearson, has played international cricket and she represented England women before the professional era.

Whoever replaces Harrison as chief executive and Ian Watmore, who stood down as chair last October, will have plenty on their plate, but the hope is they will engage more and alienate less.