Marcus Hook’s Surrey CCC column: Defending champions still feared despite succession of stalemates

If you were to sum up Surrey’s start to the season in one word, it would be ‘frustrating’.

Being on the wrong end of all three tosses hasn’t helped.

While some are beginning to question their chances of making it four championship titles in a row, it’s increasingly clear that, when the South Londoners travel away, opposing sides are opting for pitches that ensure they can’t lose and that if they bat first there’s the chance of spin being a factor on the final day.

Put simply, even though all three games so far have ended in stalemate, Surrey are still feared.

But if the Oval outfit have a weakness, it’s their lack of a specialist spinner.

The blueprint for the South Londoners’ recent success has been ‘win at home, don’t lose on the road’. Not since Amar Virdi took 39 wickets to help propel them to the title in 2018 have Surrey needed to look beyond their seamers.

But at Hove last weekend, as was the case at Chelmsford in this season’s curtain-raiser, Dan Worrall and Co struggled to beat the outside edge.

In the trio of games so far, Ben Foakes has claimed just two catches behind the stumps and, when an edge has been found, the ball has struggled to reach the keeper and slips.

As I sat watching Sussex dawdle their way to 435 all out last Saturday, I couldn’t help casting my mind back to 1999 when they started day two at Hove on 99-2 before being spun out an hour or so later for 115 by Surrey’s Saqlain Mushtaq, who took 7-19 including a hat-trick.

Last week Lawrence Booth, the editor of Wisden, ranked the 18 first-class county HQs in order of preference. Being made to feel welcome as a spectator was high on Booth’s checklist.

His top pick was Hove, which is certainly up there, especially when the sun’s out and the Mr Whippyice cream van is struggling to keep up with demand. Nottingham was second and The Oval was third.

Among the things in The Oval’s favour, according to Booth, is that it’s ‘more democratic, less self-conscious: you’re unlikely to be scolded by a steward, or bump into a middle-aged man wearing red trousers’.

The era in which hardly anyone attended a championship game at The Oval – and many of those who did went home with splinters of wood attached to their backsides – is long gone.

The facilities are truly world-class, plus it now attracts more spectators than anywhere else in the land – 13,027 attended the Hampshire game a fortnight ago.