August has changed for cricket in this country and many would argue not for the better.
It used to be the time when – trying to make itself heard above the start of a new football season – a Test series would be in full cry and maybe coming to an exciting conclusion. Now everything has been shifted to leave much of the holiday month clear for the Hundred, as controversial to followers of the game as Brexit to others.
Test matches cannot be staged while all the top cricketers are busy in the hit and giggle stuff and there are fears it might push into July as well.
But while the Hundred is on, many day-to-day followers will instead focus on the Metro Bank Trophy, grateful there is still some vestige of normality to which they can cling.
It’s somehow established itself as a niche competition, a number of matches being staged at outgrounds such as Guildford’s Woodbridge Road. This week, Surrey have been taking on Leicestershire and Gloucestershire there in the 50-over event – little compensation for no longer hosting first-class cricket, as it did so well between 1938 and 2019 but better than nothing.
The hosts are, of course, without a sizeable chunk of their squad yet that too has virtues.
The gap between first and second team cricket seems to get wider every year but this is a half-step between them which offers an opportunity for members of the squad to showcase their abilities.
Surrey have won three successive County Championship titles and may yet claim a fourth, which would make them the first team to do so for 70 years. But the squad at the Kia Oval is maturing and the transitional stage is either fast approaching or has already started.
They have a habit of creeping up on teams much faster than they think. Surrey were all powerful at the turn of the 21st century under Adam Hollioake, winning several one-day trophies along with three Championships in four years. For much of the 2003 summer another looked possible only for their form to go into a headlong dive in the final weeks. The change of guard which had seemed perhaps a year or so away had barged its way in and suddenly everything changed.
That phase remains fresh in the mind of Alec Stewart, who retired at the end of 2003 and looked on as things fell apart with alarming speed. Now supremo at The Oval, his planning for the future is key to how bad a gravitational pull Surrey suffer. The signing of young batters like Adam Thomas and Nikhil Gorantla is one signal of where he feels new faces will be needed soon, joining the likes of Josh Blake and Ollie Sykes already on board. All four are likely to feature in the Metro Bank side.
It is Surrey’s bowling which is perhaps in even greater need of fresh legs. Last year they were indebted to Dan Worrall and Jordan Clark for completing that Championship hat-trick. This year, with conditions suiting batting more, neither have looked quite the same force and that’s no surprise given they are in their mid-30s.
So how the younger bowlers fare over the coming weeks will be scrutinised closely by Stewart and his coaches.
By Richard Spiller
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