Sitting on the balcony of a plush new stand at the Kia Oval, Rory Burns is a picture of relaxation, sipping his coffee while casting an eye on a net session taking place on the outfield.
Surrey’s 33-year old captain might have won the County Championship with the Brown Caps three times already, and twice in the past two seasons, but there’s no chance of Burns coasting his way into the new season.
“Every year you go out there and try to win it, there’s seven games in eight weeks at the start of the year, it’s very much process-driven from that point. There is that carrot (of three titles in a row) but you’ve got to live day by day, hour by hour.
“Other sides want to get close to us. Surrey are at the forefront of the game – look at The Oval for starters. We’re the ones who are being chased at the moment, it’s up to us to keep pushing, to keep trying to get better, to make that gap bigger. If you rest on your laurels, you’re being complacent and that’s something we don’t want to do.”
The last team to win the County Championship title for three consecutive years was the Yorkshire side of the late 1960s. If the current Surrey team needed extra impetus to make their own history, there’s the fact that Surrey stalwart, Alec Stewart, will be leaving his role as Director of Cricket at the end of the year.
“The fact that Stewie has done what he’s done over a long period of time, and has announced he’s stepping down, is an emotional driver for us that we can utilise at various points.
“What a job he’s done! He’s pretty irreplaceable in his role. You’ve seen the production line of talent that he’s managed to bring through from the Academy, from the Surrey system through to the inter national stage.
“You’ve got Popey, Foakesy, Dan Lawrence, Gus Atkinson coming back from a long trip to India and being desperate to put the Surrey badge on. He’s instilled a lot in us culturally. Fingers crossed we can send him off with the Championship but there’s a lot of hard work between now and then.”
The left-handed opener was only too aware of his sub-standard performances with the bat during last year’s campaign, as he averaged 27.43 and failed to score a century. In large part, Surrey owed their 2023 success to the significant volume of runs from the lower middle order and tail.
Burns believes the likelihood of early se
