Author: Marcus Hook

The news Surrey have lost yet another player to The Hundred, Gus Atkinson – taking their representation in the new tournament to 11 – makes me wonder where will it all end?

Richard Johnson, Surrey’s head coach for the Royal London One-Day Cup, summed up Tuesday’s five-wicket defeat at Cardiff as “a bad day at the office.”

Aside from the genuine concerns, The Hundred has so far proved a great advertisement for domestic cricket. The finish to Monday’s Trent Rockets v Northern Superchargers clash at Trent Bridge will live long in the memory.

Ryan Patel was the star of another satisfying Surrey performance in the Royal London One-Day Cup, this time against Notts at Guildford on Tuesday – the 33-run victory putting the Oval outfit top of Group 1 on net run rate.

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.