Surrey County Cricket Club is one of the 18 professional county cricket clubs which make up the domestic English and Welsh cricket structure. Surrey County Cricket Club was formed in 1845 and is one of the most historic sports clubs in the United Kingdom representing the historic county of Surrey. The Prince of Wales, hereditary owner of the land on which The Oval stands, granted Lord Rosebery permission to use the Prince of Wales Feathers on the club’s badge back in 1915 and it still stands today.
The vast majority of Surrey home matches are played at the historic Kia Oval cricket ground in Kennington, south London but the club also has two ‘out grounds’ where some home games each season are also played. These are Whitgift School in Croydon and Guildford Cricket Club on the Woodbridge Road, Guildford. This year the Guildford Cricket Club hosted Surrey’s LV County Championship game against Warwickshire and Yorkshire Bank 40 game against Lancashire in June as part of the Guildford Cricket Festival.
Surrey County Cricket Club has had three notable periods of success in its history starting when the club was unofficially proclaimed as ‘Champion County’ seven times during the 1850s. The club won the title eight times from 1887 to 1895 which included the first ever officially constituted County Championship in 1890 and then won the title an unprecedented seven consecutive times from 1952 to 1958. During this period, Surrey won 23 of its 28 county matches in the 1955 season which is a record that cannot be broken after changes to the game in 1993 were implemented meaning that clubs now play fewer than 23 games a season.
The club has now lifted the most prestigious trophy in English domestic cricket 19 times, most recently in 2002. Since the introduction of One Day and Twenty20 cricket, Surrey has also seen great success in the limited overs game. The club won the Benson and Hedges Cup in 1974 and have won a further eight limited overs titles since, most recently with the Clydesdale Bank 40 in 2011. Surrey were also the first ever holders of the Twenty20 Cup, after winning the title in 2003 and were runners up this year on finals day in the Friends Life t20 competition. They won their semi-final match convincingly against the Hampshire Royals, but lost in the end to surprise winners Northamptonshire Steelbacks.
Surrey have always had a great affiliation with the English National team with current Surrey batsman Kevin Pietersen being centrally contracted to England, and fast bowler Jade Dernbach awarded with an incremental contract. Other Surrey players to have represented England are household names Jack Hobbs, Jim Laker, Mark Butcher, Mark Ramprakash, Graham Thorpe and of course, newly appointed first team coach Alec Stewart. Alec Stewart’s accolades include being ex-England captain, the most capped English Test cricketer of all time and second on the list of caps in One Day Internationals (ODIs) as well as appearing second on the all-time list of Test run scorers for the country.
James Martin
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