Surrey seal County Championship title hat-trick after Somerset fall short

Surrey person go the archetypal squad successful much than 50 years to triumph 3 successive County Championships, aft Somerset’s hopes of taking the title contention to the last week of the play collapsed astatine Old Trafford. 

The defending champions wrapped up a broad 10-wicket triumph implicit Durham astatine The Oval wrong 3 days this week, with Dan Worrall and Sam Curran taking 4 wickets apiece successful the visitors’ 2nd innings, aft Ryan Patel’s period had enactment the location broadside successful control. 

That meant Somerset had to triumph astatine Lancashire to support the contention live heading into adjacent week’s last circular of fixtures. Resuming connected Friday’s 4th greeting successful Manchester inactive 189 runs shy of their people with lone 4 wickets successful hand, however, Somerset were bowled retired for 224 and mislaid by 168.

That effect sees Surrey assertion their 23rd rubric (including 1 shared) and go the archetypal region to triumph the Championship 3 times connected the rotation since Yorkshire successful 1968. 

Rory Burns’ squad person led the mode passim astir of the play and appeared to beryllium cantering towards the rubric a week ago, lone to illness successful spectacular manner connected the last day against Somerset astatine Taunton.

Somerset’s melodramatic triumph with conscionable minutes to spare saw the spread constrictive to conscionable 8 points with 2 games to go, but the contenders’ contrasting fortunes this week mean Surrey instrumentality an unattainable pb of 28 points into their last crippled distant astatine Essex adjacent week.

The Three Feathers person again been ascendant astatine location this season, winning six of their 7 games astatine The Oval and drafting the different to Somerset. 

Surrey’s extent has again been cardinal to their success, with the likes of Ollie Pope, Jamie Smith, Gus Atkinson, Dan Lawrence and Curran each missing important chunks of the play connected England duty.

Seamer Worrall has enjoyed different superb campaign, with 52 wickets and counting astatine an mean of 16.15, portion Burns has been backmost to his best, passing the 1,000-run barrier, and Smith averaged 76.67 during his 9 appearances.