Alec Stewart: County Championship resumption offers chance for England's Ashes hopefuls

Surrey return to the four-day game in an effort to turn their season around against Somerset after a dismal One-Day Cup campaign

Alec Stewart sees a two-month bloc of exclusively four-day championship fixtures, which start this week, as a perfect opportunity for every county cricketer in the land to demand inclusion in England’s Ashes Test series against Australia, which begins on August 1.

“If you’re a top-three batsman, in particular, the next couple of months means the chance to score four or five hundreds or whatever, get into a tremendous run of form, and therefore demand you get selected for the Ashes,” said Surrey director of cricket Stewart.

“For every individual, there’s a lot to play for as well as trying to be successful with your team.”

He also admits that Surrey’s championship title defence is almost certain to depend on how they play between now and mid-July.

“There will be only four more matches left once we have got through this bloc of games, so we can really put ourselves into a good position to try to win the title again if we do well in this part of the season,” Stewart added.

But the former England captain and wicketkeeper-batsman also points out the “real challenge” of contesting nine Specsavers County Championship matches in ten weeks – a run of games unique in domestic cricket in modern times – and calls on Surrey’s players and back-room staff to rise to its demands.

“Even when I played we never had to play such a long run of championship matches – there was always the Sunday League or the other one-day competitions dotted around the schedule,” he said.

“It’s going to be a real challenge for everyone, players and management, and also for the strength and conditioning staff and the physios. First and foremost, whether you have a large squad or a small one, you have to perform well – but we will also definitely, be looking to manage our squad so players do not get fatigued.

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“That’s especially the case in terms of our faster bowlers. We have deliberately built a squad with the number of quicker bowlers, we feel we need to deal with injuries, drop-offs in form or England calls.

“If, for instance, someone like Morne Morkel needs to miss a game in order to rest and ensure he is fully fit when he does play, then that will happen.

“That’s the downside of playing so many four-day matches in succession like this – the lack of rest days in between.

“We play nine matches in the next ten weeks, with a break in the third week of June after the first five games, so it’s going to be very important to monitor the players.

“Ideally, of course, you always want to play your very best side in every championship fixture – that’s what the competition should be. But we have to deal with what is in front of us.

“And we’re not crying about it – let’s get that straight. In many ways, being able to concentrate on red-ball cricket for the next ten weeks is a very good thing. Our job as management is precisely to manage situations and to make sure we perform as strongly as possible as a team throughout this period.”

Injuries to key players badly affected Surrey’s Royal London One-Day Cup campaign, in which they finished bottom of the South Group with just one win in eight games, but all-rounder Rikki Clarke and top-order batsman Scott Borthwick have shaken off finger and calf problems respectively and are available to play against Somerset at Taunton this week in the first of the championship fixtures which will dominate the domestic calendar between now and July 18.

All-rounder Sam Curran, however, is rested this week on the orders of England’s management, despite his return from the Indian Premier League, while spinner Amar Virdi, paceman Jade Dernbach and all-rounder Jordan Clark remain on the sidelines.

Courtesy of the ECB reporters network

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