Author: Marcus Hook

So Surrey’s T20 race is run. It’s a particularly bitter pill to swallow given that their campaign started with three successive victories. But I guess you have to look at who two of them were against – Glamorgan and Middlesex, who ultimately propped up the group.

Surrey have signed Cameron Steel from Durham on a two-year contract, which will run to the end of 2023. The leg spinning all-rounder will join the Oval outfit on loan for the remainder of this season.

Surrey all-rounder Rikki Clarke has announced that he will retire from competitive cricket at the end of the season, after more than 20 years in the game – during which he has taken just shy of 800 wickets and scored nearly 18,000 runs in all competitions.

Alec Stewart admitted that Surrey’s chances of qualifying for the quarter-finals now needs other results to go their way, even if the South Londoners turn over Gloucestershire in their final South Group fixture this afternoon.

When Surrey opened their T20 account with three successive victories, little did I think they would go into their final group game needing not only to beat Gloucestershire but also hoping Somerset do likewise in order to qualify for the quarter-finals. But that’s the equation.

Surrey not only head into the final day of the County Championship’s group phase today against Somerset at the Oval hoping to avoid defeat, but also needing a favour from fiercest rivals Middlesex.

Despite hitting 57, Surrey’s Laurie Evans cut a dejected figure at the end of last week’s 11-run defeat to Kent at Canterbury, as it now means the Oval outfit need to win one – if not both – of their remaining Vitality Blast group games to be certain of a quarter-final berth.

There’s an old song that goes ‘Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall’, which, for the last week, sums up the setbacks Surrey have had to endure.

Surrey head coach Vikram Solanki is confident Will Jacks will give a good account of himself, after the 22-year-old was one of nine uncapped players called up at the eleventh hour to England’s replacement squad of 18 for the white-ball series against Pakistan, which gets underway at Cardiff tomorrow.

When you draw back the curtains in the morning you’re reminded that it’s Wimbledon fortnight.
The threat of rain has continued to influence county cricket’s Vitality Blast, which is fine if you’re one of the teams with wins in the bank; not so if your group campaign needs a kick-start.

Jamie Overton claimed Surrey used the disappointment of losing by one-run to Glamorgan on Tuesday to see off Hampshire, the following night, and return to the top of the Vitality Blast South Group.

Ollie Pope is confident Surrey can bounce back from losing narrowly to Glamorgan in the Vitality Blast.

With Vitality Blast fixtures coming thicker and faster than at any time in the competition’s history – mainly to accommodate The Hundred – the government’s announcement that crowd capacities for outdoor sports events will have to remain capped at 25 per cent or 10,000, whichever is smaller, for another four weeks is a huge worry in financial terms.

Despite suffering their first defeat in the Vitality Blast, Surrey’s record batting second in T20 cricket both this year and last remains mightily impressive. Star batsman Laurie Evans says it’s because chasing down a target is no longer as daunting as it once was.

Surrey missed the chance to go back to the top of the Vitality Blast South Group after suffering their first T20 defeat of the season, to Essex Eagles at the Kia Oval on Monday.

Will Jacks reckons having Sam Curran, Tom Curran and Jason Roy available for the start of the Vitality Blast campaign has been a boost for Surrey – not that they needed much of a one based on last year’s T20.

Surrey have made a rampaging start to their T20 campaign, setting the standard in the South Group with three wins out of three.