Marcus Hook’s Surrey CCC column: No strutting but defending champions are already flexing their muscles

BY MARCUS HOOK

Surrey are certainly starting to flex their muscles, not that they’re doing so in a brash way. Back when Adam Hollioake was pulling the strings they were tagged the ‘Surrey Strutters’. Wind forward 20 years, this team is simply going about its business in a highly proficient manner.

To have swept Warwickshire aside – given the weather forecast, the Oval outfit’s four-day record on the road in recent times and despite the purpose the Bears have rediscovered from the end of last season leading into this one – suggests a second championship title in as many years really could be heading to South London.

If Surrey’s mantra last summer was to bat teams out of the game, this year it’s leaving the opposition batsmen nowhere to hide.

Dan Worrall (16 wickets at 18.12) and Kemar Roach (14 at 19.21) have hit such a rich vein of form the rest of the attack are looking a bit like kids at a birthday party where there doesn’t seem to be enough cake to go around.

“Dan and I work really well as a partnership,” said Roach. “We communicate well – he is a big fan of me and I am a big fan of him, so we go perfectly hand in hand.

“He takes the ball away and also moves it back into the right-handers, so it’s been working out pretty well for us so far in the last couple of games.”

Roach was quick to highlight the importance of Tom Lawes claiming the wicket of Sam Hain, for just 10, in Warwickshire’s first dig.

Hain has gone from averaging 284 with the bat in two games this season to 99 after three.

Roach is a huge fan of Lawes, who, at 20, has already bagged 28 first-class wickets at an average of 23.75.

“Lawesy took a big wicket to get rid of Hain, who has been in good form,” said the West Indian. “He has bowled some important spells for us. It’s great to see a youngster coming through the academy and putting the hard yards and performing for Surrey.”

Jamie Smith, 22, is another homegrown who is quietly, but skillfully putting together a case for future England selection.

Smith hasn’t gone big by any means this season, but his 88, in a low-scoring game, was worth a lot more.

The way he launched the bowling of Chris Rushworth straight down the ground for successive sixes on the third morning epitomised Surrey’s early season supremacy.

PICTURE: KEITH GILLARD