Marcus Hook: Injuries have blighted Surrey’s season – it’s easier to list who is fit

BY MARCUS HOOK

Injuries have been the story of Surrey’s season. Tom Curran is the latest addition to the list of walking wounded after picking up a side strain in last week’s surprise T20 victory over Sussex, who remain top of the South Group despite dropping three out of four points to Surrey in the Blast.

Curran is trying to be optimistic. He said: “Obviously, it’s very disappointing to be missing the rest of the season. With the amount of cricket I’ve played in the last few years I haven’t really had an off season, so looking at the positives I’m excited to make the most of this opportunity and get a seriously good six weeks training in.

“I feel like my body needs it and it’s going to stand me in good stead moving forward.”

It’s quicker to name the Surrey players who haven’t been crocked at some stage this season. By my reckoning the list would read Gareth Batty, Will Jacks, Morne Morkel, Ryan Patel, Mark Stoneman plus the three overseas.

Surrey would be the first to admit it has been a disappointing campaign, given the high of winning the County Championship a year ago, but constant changes of personnel have made it impossible to build-up any momentum.

That’ll teach me for writing at the start of the season that Alec Stewart and Michael Di Venuto would have their work cut out giving all the players game time.

You can pretty much name Surrey’s starting 11 based on who’s fit, which gives those who are the chance to improve their stock – particularly the top order, who will need to up their game now that Rory Burns has cemented his Test place.

On the plus side, it’s great to have Ollie Pope back so soon from what looked like a sickening shoulder injury and to see Amar Virdi whirling away again. Virdi was an ever-present in the championship last season and Pope missed just the one four-dayer.

Surrey didn’t make enough use of Virdi’s off-spin in Hampshire’s first innings earlier this week, especially with batsman nine and batman 10 combining for a frustrating 114 in 36 overs, which put the visitors in an unassailable position.

Not for the first time this season, Di Venuto told it as it was. He said: “We weren’t very good with the ball on day two. As soon as we took the new ball we went searching for wickets and ended up picking it out of the gutter most of the time.”

Credit where it’s due – Rikki Clarke was the model of consistency. The 37-year-old’s 7-74 took his tally since returning to the Oval to 103 championship wickets at an average of 21.89. His value is further underlined by the fact that he was one of only two fit and available players – Pope being the other – who were averaging over 32 with the bat in red-ball cricket heading into the Hampshire game.

With the Hundred next year, Surrey could do with more players like Clarke – as good as any around, but who might be considered over the hill and therefore overlooked in this October’s auction by those who seem keen that the competition should be viewed as new and exciting.

Last Saturday’s events at Lord’s prove that something doesn’t have to be new to be compelling.

But talking about the Hundred, it now looks odds-on that Tom Moody, not Ricky Ponting, will be unveiled as the Oval Invincibles’ supremo. It’s not the first time Moody – coach of Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL and a former Australia batsman – has been linked with Surrey.

The club’s chief executive Richard Gould revealed a few days ago that the finer points are still to be ironed out in terms of the deal for the Oval to stage four games in next year’s Hundred. But Surrey are by no means the only host county yet to put pen to paper.

Gould told a Members’ Forum that it’s impossible to ignore the negativity the Hundred is attracting; and that when he points this out to the ECB, it’s simply brushed off.

Gould concluded that Surrey won’t be responsible if the new competition is a failure, and his primary concern is avoiding what he calls “unintended consequences down line” and that the Hundred “doesn’t knock us [Surrey] off course in terms of what we stand for.”