County cricket talking points: Surrey clinch title with match to spare

It was when the player profiles appeared on the big screens at the Oval that I felt sure it was Hampshire’s job to keep the title race open and not Yorkshire’s. The likes of Finlay Bean and George Hill may have talent, but they looked very callow compared to Surrey’s big beasts, such as Jamie Overton, Kemar Roach and Dan Worrall. Factor in Tom Kohler-Cadmore’s propensity to squander his talent and Will Fraine, in at No 5 but with just the one half-century this season, and it never looked likely that the visitors would score enough runs – and they didn’t.

In some ways the match was a microcosm of Surrey’s season. Five seamers each took at least three wickets and a part-time spinner chipped in with a couple. Ollie Pope made a brilliant century and enough batters played around him to post 333, which proved enough to yield the opportunity to enforce the follow-on, which Rory Burns, one eye on Friday’s forecast, did.

Burns was one of just three ever-presents (with one match to come) alongside fellow opener Ryan Patel and the veteran Hashim Amla, forming a stable top three. But a remarkable 12 batters average 40 or more and six bowlers average 30 or less. In all, 22 players have played under Burns’ captaincy in the Championship and pretty much every one of them has made a genuine contribution. That is a remarkable feat of leadership with much credit also going to coach Gareth Batty in his first season. It’s one thing to be blessed with resources, but quite another to get so much out of them.

Hampshire ran into Kent with the club revelling in the backwash of their Royal London Cup victory and its players very much motivated to avoid the drop. On a mad first day, 23 wickets fell, Kent’s anaemic 165 all out made to look