Resurgent Surrey consign the shambolic seasons to history
Alec Stewart has overseen a new culture at the Oval, writes Tim Wigmore – and it is paying off handsomely
Around 2000, when Surrey were in the middle of a run of three County Championship titles in four years, the club acquired a new moniker: the Manchester United of cricket. Soon, though, they were more like Queens Park Rangers: a club whose financial clout and high self-regard translated only into lousy results on the pitch.
After being relegated from Division One in 2008, Surrey spent only two of the next seven seasons in the top flight, in one of which they were relegated again. They did not even have the consolation of producing international players. From 2003 came 13 long years without any England Test debutants from Surrey.
In place of victories and long-term planning, Surrey embraced shorttermism and failure, stocking up on expensive recruits – they shelled out £10,000 for the two games of Shoaib Akhtar in 2008 in a doomed attempt to avoid relegation – to no avail. Surrey and their ragtag array of signings found creative ways to lose: from 2008-10, they won just five County Championship games out of 48.
The ignominy hurt. “I hated it when Surrey weren’t doing well,” recalls Alec Stewart, a Surrey legend – and son of another one, Micky – who became director of cricket in 2011.
In November 2013, when considering whether to take on the role full-time, Stewart told the chief executive and chairman two things: “I want to make Surrey the best team in the country again. But also I want Surrey to produce players for England again.”
As England play at the Oval, Surrey are the envy of county cricket once again. They are waltzing towards their first County Championship title since 2002. Domestic Twenty20 nights at the Oval have become an institution; in the past three years, 350,000 fans have attended. And last week, the Surrey Stars won the Kia Super League, the main women’s T20 competition.
But the biggest source of pride is that the players thriving for Surrey are mostly their own. They created history last year by becoming the first county side since the Second World War to field four teenagers; all had come through their age-group set-up. Two of them – Sam Curran and Ollie Pope – made England Test debuts at 20 this summer.
An element of financial determinism underpins all this. Surrey’s cash reserves are the envy of the other 17 first-class counties; it should follow that their first-team
squad are too. That, though, has not been the case since 2003, after six trophies in five years. Now, Surrey prioritise players for the long term, and they are identified for their character as well as cricketing ability. Kumar Sangakkara, who enjoyed a magisterial three-year stint from 2015-17, and Morne Morkel, who signed on a Kolpak deal from this season, have contributed more than bountiful runs and wickets.
“Both are very open to give advice, to help, to put an arm around, to say ‘come on, we can do better, we can work harder’,” says Gareth Batty, Surrey’s captain from 2013-17.
Surrey have focused, too, on youth development. On an academy tour to South Africa in 2013, Curran, Pope, Ryan Patel and Amar Virdi took a photo together, when all were 15. Four years later, they replicated it: only, this time, in the dressing room at the Oval, where they were playing Middlesex. “It was great to see a cohort of players come through together,” says Gareth Townsend, Surrey’s academy director. “We’re in the business of developing players to play for Surrey and England – that’s the aim.” Surrey have advantages. There is the county’s network of private schools – Whitgift and Cranleigh (Pope’s old school), are reliable player factories. And the club’s wealth ensures copious investment in under-age tours
and coaching. From the age of 14, Surrey focus on giving players “as much contact time one-on-one with top quality coaches”, Stewart explains.
“What I focus on is the best talent that’s out there,” Townsend says. “We will be bringing in younger players aged 12, 13, 14 who will be training in an academy environment – which means they have support on their technical skills, their fielding, strength and conditioning, some gentle sports-science support. It’s all tailored for their age. They get a very all-round programme from a young age.”
On a trip to Devon in 2014, which included Pope and Curran, Townsend and the players drew up a list of 12 behaviours for best conduct. The words – respect, humility, awareness, pride, ownership, passion, drive, understanding, resilience, humour, character, honesty – are straightforward. But Townsend believes this inculcates Surrey’s version of the All Blacks’ “no d-------s” policy.
Stewart says it took “three years” to get the balance of the squad right. The evolution has been brutal. From the team who took the field at Arundel in June 2013, in the last game before Chris Adams was sacked, only three are still at Surrey as players. Of the backroom staff, only the physio remains.
Surrey’s philosophy has been to marry high-class recruits with empowering youth. Stewart likes six or seven players in each XI to have come through Surrey’s system.
“We’d rather give young players an opportunity to learn or grow in first-team cricket than perhaps give a 27, 28 or 29-year-old an opportunity who may have reached their ceiling,” he says. “If you’re giving youngsters an opportunity, their rate of growth is massive and steep. They’ll learn early and get experience early.”
In Surrey’s dressing room during matches, there is a whiteboard with a list of Key Performance Indicators to be achieved. “It’s basics, but we challenge the team to tick off a high number of those KPIs, because that will then breed success,” says Stewart.
The surprise is that it has taken so long for Surrey to return to the summit. If they lift the County Championship, it will be only their second trophy – along with the 2011 Clydesdale Bank 40, and discounting the Division Two title – since 2003.
“I probably didn’t expect it to have taken as long,” says Batty. “As long as we get over the line this year, everything’s in place for us to do that for a sustained period of time.”
If Surrey can make good on their abundant on-field promise while continuing to surge off the field, that line about Manchester United could even be updated.
“We want people who want to be successful for themselves, but put the club first,” Stewart laughs. “If that means we’re being compared to Man City, we must be doing something right.”
‘We’d rather give young players an opportunity than a 27 or 28-year-old who’ve reached their ceiling’