And by the way I'm not necessarily tipping them for the title. County sides with a bit of game nous (maybe Lancs or Notts) might well unseat them. It's just Surrey of all the sides appear to have all bases covered and could very well be in that position for a long time.

Some pundits ludicrously predicted a decade of Yorkshire dominance 7 or 8 years back but that was backed by fairly flimsy evidence. Surrey in complete contrast could conceivably go onto dominate the county scene for a lengthy spell. They won't however as someone will have the game nous to unseat them.

paulbear wrote:

Why and how is Norwell injured? What has he done between the Hampshire game in Sept '22 till now, to get injured. It is like Rankin syndrome all over again, when Boyd would be unavailable at the start of a season whilst having not played during the Winter months.

Who would you have left out of this XI to accommodate Norwell? Had he been fit of course...

https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/county-championship-division-one-2023-1347099/warwickshire-vs-surrey-1347221/match-report-3

Surrey and Warwickshire probably the two most bloody-minded sides in Division One, both capable of soaking up considerable punishment yet still coming back for more. That is a measure of Surrey's achievement in breaking the game in such startling fashion. Surrey's sense of when to step up the tempo was an impressive feature of their second win in three.

Alec Stewart, their director of cricket, ably backed up by Batty and and skipper Rory Burns, have re-established the sort of Surrey dominance that was felt in the 1950s and again at the turn of the century. On and off the field, they are setting the standards. The Championship cannot be settled in April, especially by a side that has only won two matches in three, but it is already abundantly clear that they will take some stopping.

Think there is definitely lots of truth in Warks still being a developing side as Robinson re-asserted. Winning the title in 2021 was off the back of 5 or 6 games hanging on in there against decent sides E.g. Notts twice, Essex. Surrey are now a step above anything we faced in that title winning season (maybe Hampshire and Durham's bowling aside) but I fancy Lancs to take the game to them and you never know what Essex might be able to conjure up when they meet at Chelmsford next week.

As for Warks I do still think we have a good attack now. Was it a bad time to play Surrey as some suggested or would they be even more dominant in July with IPL lads back? I was intrigued by the pitch prepared for this game. Also some criticism of allowing Surrey's eighth wicket pair to get away but that's cricket. Might Rhodes have thrown the ball to Hassan and Woakes once OHD completed his over? Possibly. But had the extra pace mix of yorkers and shorter stuff gone wrong we'd all have been asking why Rhodes hadn't stuck with the line and length that seemed to work on Day 2 but clearly allowed Jamie Smith and Worrall to cut loose. The amount of time they had to play shots

Surrey have just been incredibly smart in their recruitment.
They’ve recruited and kept players knowing they have 2, sometimes 3 in every position. Their squad is enormous. Financially they have that ability whilst no one else does. But what it means for them is that, their overseas typically stay all year. And they can’t and don’t get overly weakened by England selections, but have international quality throughout most of the side. When England are playing they lose Pope and Foakes. But then Smith keeps, Steel comes up the order, in comes a player like Geddes. They have Overton, Roy, 2x Currans who are unavailable, and a couple players on loan but all could come in later in the year. Chris Jordan and Laurie Evans used as white ball only specialists.

Where I think they could get unstuck is if it gets difficult. Maybe lose a couple matches in a row, fall back in the table, have a couple of injuries whilst they have players on international duty. They strike me as excellent front runners. Not sure how they’d do coming from behind. You feel some of them could just check out, not be up for the fight.

Yep all true. They also have a plethora of good quality homegrown talent. They recruit heavily but also back their own homegrown guys, by showing them a pathway and route into the first XI. 6 of the XI who played against us came through the Surrey pathway/academy.

Well, I go off to Norway on a cruise, looking forward all week to getting to Edgbaston for the final day today, only to find out it's all over. My fault for taking a holiday in the cricket season. Reading this thread has given me a very good flavour of what happened.
Onwards and upwards!

That's the way Gerry, give it some of that Viking spirit.

paulbear wrote:

That's the way Gerry, give it some of that Viking spirit.

Gerry I'd take my own if I was you. Have you seen the price of Norweigen spirit?

Yes but I'm pining for the fjords.