Smith in fairness didn't last long at the crease and in fact his stay in the country was soon cut short by an ankle injury. The county championship soon gave way to YB40 games,a new year, a new sponsor. In recent seasons Surrey have had success in this form of the game, culminating in victory in the Lords final in 2011. Eighteen months on, finals seemed a long way away. That side has been dismantled for the number of reasons, the seasoned journeymen who have been introduced are struggling to find consistency.
The two individual highlights for the Rey have been a rare appearance by Kevin Pietersen, returning from injury, who plundered the Yorkshire attack at Headingley before returning to England duty, and finally a remarkable innings from Ricky Ponting, preventing defeat and ensuring that the former Australian skipper scored 179 not out in his final first class innings.
June saw us visit Lords for the Saturday of the test match v New Zealand and gave us an opportunity to see a fine knock from emerging star Joe Root and another impressive bowling spell from Jimmy Anderson. It's been a good two months for winning prizes and competitions. We won two tickets to Northants v Warwickshire at the County Ground,Northampton. Having been there a couple of times now I must say how enjoyable cricket is there. It is such a friendly club, very welcoming, and of course watching there allows the chance to keep up with the career of Matt Spriegel , former Surrey player who sadly felt he needed to move to get the chance to play county cricket at the end of the 2012 season.
We won two tickets to a YB40 game at Chelmsford and my son and I naturally chose the game v Surrey.Schoolboy error. I'm beginning to despair at Surrey's performance at Chelmsford, but hopefully we can salvage something in the T20 competition at the end of this month.
The first half of the season finally saw Surrey dismiss Chris Adams as coach; like many I felt Adams should have resigned at the end of last season for all too obvious reasons. Alec Stewart is now overseeing cricket at the Oval, and all fans know that Alec is Surrey through and through. No player needs to doubt his knowledge or commitment.
The T20 games have been a mixed bag , without doubt the highlight has been completing the double in El Clasico against Middlesex. At the Oval the game couldn't have been more even with Surrey winning on the final ball of the game.
We bought tickets at Lords and had no idea that the Rey would produce perhaps either finest display of the first half of the season in front of 28,000 spectators, the largest crowd ever to watch a T20 game in London. Surrey defeated the old foe by 92 runs, and in doing so all but guaranteeing progression into the quarter finals.
Finally we went to Wormsley in Buckinghamshire to see Old England v Old Australia in a game funded by Wolf Blass. A wonderful, a warm day and good cricket to entertain the 2000 guests.
At the time of writing England are 2-0 up in the Ashes tests, gates for the T20 tournament are at an all time high, with many games selling out. It's amazing what a successful team and good weather will do.
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