County cricket 2022 awards: the Spin’s final word on the season

We’re in touching distance of the finishing tape but there’s still time for a last stumble in the mud. For once, however, the Spin is early, laden with gongs to dole out to the best, worst, and most memorable events of the 2022 Championship season.

This is a Championship that may – depending on which way the counties vote on the Strauss report, probably before the fixtures come out in November, possibly sometime in the spring of 2048 – be in its final incarnation of two divisions with promotion and relegation. Much then, to celebrate. With no further ado: please put your hands together for …

The Micky Stewart award for team of the season Surrey, a cut above the rest. Well led by Rory Burns, 22 focused players, 10 of them homegrown, who took a 16-point lead into September and didn’t slip up. Most tellingly, Ollie Pope and Ben Foakes were desperate to come back and play for their club in the penultimate match of the year and help seal the title. A class act.

The Kwasi Kwarteng award for inept announcements The ECB, for publishing the final results of the High Performance Review on the very day Surrey won the championship. This ensured that players were asked about their thoughts on Strauss’s fine print just after doing a victory lap of the Oval, and were pushed to the side of their own story.

The Joe Root award for outstanding excellence with the bat Harry Brook, head and shoulders above other young English contenders, who dominated the first half of the season before being called up by England. His absence in September proved a glaring hole in Yorkshire’s batting lineup as they fought to avoid relegation.

The are-we-there-yet award The Cricket Disciplinary Committee’s investigation of the Azeem Rafiq saga at Yorkshire,