Will Surrey win the County Championship without hundreds, take wickets or win competitions?

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The draw is an unloved thing. Nobody sings songs about finishing level because you don’t have time anymore. You do not get a passionate speeches from the oeuvre: “Maybe it will rain this afternoon and we will get away with this.” But draws are still important – some years more than others.

In April we wondered if this could be the year that someone came close to Warwickshire’s breathtaking performance of 2004 to win the County Championship with only five wins from 16 games. Things like that is still very bad, you know.

With two games to go, Surrey is one point for Nottinghamshire with only four wins to their name. The two provinces play each other exciting this week. The chances are on a draw.

That is more to do with Surrey than with Nottts. Trawling Due to the statistics this season this morning, the most important thing was that we noticed the contrast in bowling -backing.

Nottinghamshire has six bowlers who have taken more than 20 wickets this season – Surrey only two. It is not as if the two also get away for each opposition stroke. Then Worrall took 28 wickets and Jordan Clark has taken 31.

Those are good but not incredible figures. Fergus O’Neill took 21 for Nottinghamshire and he left the country in April.

In recent years we have often described Surrey’s approach as depth-like with a huge cast of players who immerse the work in and from the first team. But this is not really a case that the wickets spread more. Surrey’s Bowlers have taken 156 wickets; Nottts’ have taken 186.

To place that in context, the soil placed Worcestershire’s bowlers also took 186. The bowlers of most provinces have 170 people. The bowlers of near-As-Drawsome Essex (seven draws to Surrey’s eight) have taken 190 wickets. (These figures do not contain run-outs, but we think that it is not important. If Surrey had performed 30-40 run-outs this season, we are quite sure that we have heard about it.)

It is not even as Surrey breaks the opposition in oblivion, insofar as we can distinguish. To return to the top-of-the-table of head-to-head comparison, they jointly scored 10 hundred and 39 1950s versus 14 hundreds and 31 fifties by Notts’ players.

Surrey v Nottinghamshire is now underway. Brace yourself for many 40-modds and a good number of rain returns.

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