Surrey Promotion

I may be a Gloucestershire fan but I would like to offer my congratulations to Surrey on their promotion. In terms of the future of English cricket Surrey being promoted will offer much better long term prospects than either Gloucestershire or Northants. There are a number of young English prospects in the Surrey team who may well go onto international honours and the higher standard of cricket in the first division should benefit their development and give a better indicator to the selectors of the quality of the players.

Surrey’s bowling attack is one of the strongest in the country and with the addition of Pragyan Ohja for the last month or so of the season there is a great deal of variation in the attack. Tim Linley has developed into a fine opening bowler who is a very good exponent of the swinging ball; it will be interesting how he goes in the first division without the use of the Tiflex ball. Chris Jordan and Stuart Meaker both offer express pace and Meaker in particular is a real wicket taker who could go onto higher honours. He has added consistency to his pace and has benefited from being injury free throughout the season – bowlers who bowl 90mph+ are always at a premium and England may well add Meaker to their stable of fast bowlers in the future. Batty and Ohja spin the ball opposite ways, and Zander De Bruyn is a good option when the ball is swinging. I haven’t even mentioned Jade Dernbach and Chris Tremlett – Surrey’s attack when at full strength is probably as close to test class as anyone’s in county cricket- and then there is the addition of Gloucestershire stalwart Jon Lewis which should add depth to an attack which may be affected by international call ups and injuries more than they have this season.

The Surrey batting is more volatile and is viable to do anything(probably with the exception of scoring 600-4 in 200 overs) and will be their weak link next season if Mark Ramprakash doesn’t contribute more than he has done this season(if he even makes next season). Rory Hamilton-Brown, Jason Roy, Tom Maynard are all exciting prospects with Roy probably the most exciting of the bunch and Steven Davies is still young and scoring plenty of runs but what a signing Zander de Bruyn has proved. It’s conceivable if Somerset had retained his services that they would have won the county championship and almost certain that Surrey would not have been promoted. The young batsmen can be impetuous and at times immature in their approach to batting but you can’t fault their ability or mentality. 

Whatever happens to Surrey next season you can be sure it will be exciting, and let’s hope their England prospects benefit from the step up in standard, the batsman mature and the bowlers continue to prosper. The first season will be the toughest and if they do manage to stay up next year expect the young team to go from strength to strength. The combination of the promising young players, older senior players, and the financial clout that they posses means they should continue to improve and I wouldn’t be surprised if they become the dominant side in English cricket in a few years time.