Matt Dunn revival provides silver lining to Surrey's poor start

Surrey need to bounce back against Yorkshire at Guildford next week if they are to resurrect their hopes of back-to-back championships. This season they remain winless from five matches

Successive Specsavers County Championship defeats, against Warwickshire at Edgbaston and this week’s 102-run loss to Somerset at Guildford, have made it a tough fortnight for injury-hit Surrey – but at least the revitalisation of Matt Dunn’s career is providing some succour for captain Rory Burns and his side.

Fast bowler Dunn took a career-best five for 43 in Somerset’s second innings at Woodbridge Road, and eight wickets in the match, having also impressed at Warwickshire where he picked up four wickets in his first championship appearance for a year.

Dunn, who turned 27 a month ago, played in only two championship games during Surrey’s title-winning campaign last season and, in recent years, has been regularly sidelined by injuries. Earlier this year, indeed, he even had to endure operations to extract both his wisdom teeth due to infection.

“Frustrating is the only word I can use to describe the last few years,” said Dunn, “but I feel like I am now back to being fit and healthy again and I am only just 27. That means there is a lot to look forward to and a lot I can yet achieve.

“What pleased me most about the way I bowled against Somerset was the discipline to stick to the basics of trying to put as many balls as you can in the right areas.

“I felt we did that well as a bowling unit, too. Getting another five-for has been a long time coming, but I’m proud of the performance and I’m looking at what Jade Dernbach did last year in four-day cricket as an example of what I can do to show the depth we have in our squad despite our injuries.”

Dunn’s previous best first-class return was his five for 48 against Gloucestershire in 2014, the season in which he was Surrey’s leading wicket-taker in red-ball cricket with 47. In the nine years since he made his first-class Surrey debut as an 18-year-old, however, Dunn has played in only 38 matches – taking 111 wickets at an average of 34 runs apiece.

^{Surrey's title defence has begun poorly.}

Last summer fast bowler Dernbach – ironically now one of Surrey’s injured, alongside Ollie Pope, Sam Curran, Amar Virdi, Conor McKerr and Jordan Clark – found himself playing ten championship games due to the unavailability of others, despite being earmarked predominantly for white-ball cricket as Surrey’s T20 captain.

Dernbach took 32 wickets at 29 in the triumphant campaign, an inspiration for Dunn as he aims to build on the successes of the last fortnight.

Initially, however, Dunn and Burns and the rest of Surrey’s team need to bounce back against Yorkshire at Guildford next week if they are to resurrect their hopes of back-to-back championships – or even of mounting a strong defence of the 2018 title. This season they remain winless from five matches, the first three of which were drawn.

“Yes, there are a lot of injuries around at the moment,” said Burns, who could also have referenced the World Cup absences of Tom Curran and Jason Roy, “but we still have a lot of very good players in that dressing room and we’re lucky to have the strong squad we have. Smaller counties would be struggling to get a full side on to the park!

“There are opportunities now for people to come in and perform, as Matt Dunn has shown. It was nice to see him fit and firing and back to his best. As a team, though, there are lots of little things we are not getting right at the moment – so it’s good that we have another chance next week against Yorkshire to start to put them right.”

Burns said he did not expect any of Surrey’s current injury casualties to be ready to return for the second Guildford fixture, and the club’s management will no doubt be glad that there is a week off from championship duty during the following round of games in which to regroup.

That break will also enable certain players to confirm fitness, and others to rest, ahead of a resumption of championship hostilities against Warwickshire at the Kia Oval on June 23-26.

Report courtesy of the ECB Reporters Network

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