Concerns linger for Surrey despite strong batting displays

Surrey have opened their 2026 title-reclamation campaign with two draws on batting-friendly pitches, but head coach Gareth Batty is not concerned, insisting his side were in a “very good place” coming into the season.

They currently sit fifth in the Championship, nine points behind leaders Somerset, though the season is still in its early stages.

More concerning, however, is their recent home form. Surrey have failed to win any of their last five County Championship matches at The Oval, a run stretching back to May 2025 and includes their pivotal loss to Nottinghamshire in last season’s title decider.

Prior to this run, The Oval was a fortress for Surrey, with their dominance at home crucial to their three consecutive red-ball titles after COVID.

Speaking after their most recent draw, Batty reflected on his side’s laboured showing against Leicestershire.

“It’s an interesting one, because in preseason, any metric we used, any eyes that we used, suggested we were ready to go.

“We’re in a very good place. But then, when it’s come down to the points and the game time, we’ve not quite executed.

“So we need to look at it as a group, because bowling is about the unit, not one individual within that unit. So we need to readdress how that looks.”

Despite piling on 520 with the bat after being sent in by Leicestershire, Surrey did not make the most of their ascendancy against their newly promoted opposition.

Batty continued, “We did some things pretty well, but were not quite up to our standards in other disciplines.

“We weren’t disciplined with ball in hand, and unfortunately, we can’t drop the catches that we dropped.”

“They played nicely, but I think we allowed them to. I’m always going to err that our destiny is in our hands, and we allowed people to play very, very well on our patch.

“But credit to [Rishi] Patel. He played very, very well, at the top of the order and set the tone, which breeds confidence throughout a team.”

However, there were some positives for Surrey to take from the game. England pair Ollie Pope and Jamie Smith, both of whom endured difficult winters Down Under, impressed with the bat.

Pope made 103 in the first innings before finishing unbeaten on 83 in the second. Smith, who moved up to number three at the start of the season, continued his strong form with a second consecutive century, before a quickfire 89 in the second innings helped erase the deficit on the final day.

The 25-year-old’s move up the order has seen him rediscover the composed, dominant style that first earned him England recognition. For England, Smith showed a level of recklessness that he rarely shows for Surrey, the most prominent being his dismissal to Marnus Labuschagne in Sydney. However, this promotion appears to have refocused him, shifting him away from a swashbuckling BazBall brute to a more clinical Championship run-machine.

His 166 was built in a controlled, fluent manner, rarely forcing the pace but consistently scoring with ease.

Batty explained this move up the order after the game, saying, “It was a conversation before the season started. We anticipate that he was quite likely to batter at three.

“Revisiting conversations from yesteryear with Ponting or something like that. ‘You have all the credentials to bat at three. You can take the attack to the opposition, but you also have a wonderful technique and defence.’

“He’s adapted really well to the difference in batting five and three, and long may it continue.

“It’s just a young man showing that he’s still evolving. He’s still developing. He’s still trying to be a better player than he was last week, and hopefully next week he’ll try and be better again.”