SUSSEX V SURREY at Hove (RCC)
18-21 APRIL 2025

Joint top of Division One play host to seventh-placed Surrey, who, just as they did in 2024, have started the new campaign with a couple of draws. Newly promoted Sussex, meanwhile, are fresh from a crushing 260-run victory over Somerset.

Had it not been for Dom Sibley’s unbeaten hundred in Surrey's first innings last Friday, Hampshire might well have gone on to win at the Oval. But a game that had ebbed and flowed throughout was robbed of a thrilling climax when the visitors, needing 78 off ten overs with 5 wickets intact, returned to the field after bad light wanting 78 off six.

Sibley is now second only to Geoff Boycott in terms of those who have carried their bat through an innings in post-war County Championship games - Sibley has done so six times to Boycott’s 8 for Yorkshire, between 1968 and 1985.

You would have got healthy pre-season odds on Notts, Sussex and Warwickshire sharing top billing in the County Championship.

Similarly, in the second division, who could have possibly foreseen Kent making it two wins out of two, even allowing for the Adam Hollioake effect, after being relegated at the end of last summer?

Like all good sides, Sussex bat virtually all the way down. Ollie Robinson, coming in at nine or possibly ten, has a first-class average of 19.44 with the willow. Daniel Hughes has opened his 2025 account averaging 48.00 as the overseas batter. Tom Haines (51.50) and Tom Clark (65.00) have also started strongly, while captain-keeper John Simpson (360 Champo runs at 180.00) has wasted no time notching up two centuries this term.

Left-arm seamer Sean Hunt, who cut his cricketing teeth with Surrey's Academy before moving to Hove four years ago, is undergoing a scan on a muscle injury (after taking 5-48 and 4-28 against Somerset last week), so will miss out on this occasion. But Fynn Hudson-Prentice will go into this game full of confidence.

If Jayden Seales, Ollie Robinson and off-spinner Jack Carson discover the form Hudson-Prentice and Hunt have enjoyed in the opening fortnight this could make for a fascinating contest.

Surrey v Sussex - First-Class Records Sheet

Ben Foakes will start with a combined 498 first-class career dismissals as both keeper and fielder, while, in terms of f-c wickets for Surrey, Kemar Roach and Dan Worrall currently have 97 and 142 victims respectively to their names.

Jamie Smith is being rested, but Gus Atkinson looks set to make his first appearance of the new season. Cam Steel, Ollie Sykes and James Taylor are also named in the Oval outfit's 14-player squad.

Surrey and Sussex have only met once in four-day cricket since 2013, and that was in the 2020 summer of Covid. Also, they also haven't contested a championship fixture at Hove since 2010, when the Martlets were inspired by Robin Martin-Jenkins and Naved-ul-Hasan’s ninth-wicket stand of 124 in the hosts’ first dig. Ul-Hasan and Martin-Jenkins also combined to claim 12 wickets as Sussex eased to victory on the fourth morning. The immediate weather forecast points to a bit of rain being around, which could put paid to as much as a day's play. Given this and Sussex's promising start to the new season, a draw seems the most likely outcome.

D.Hughes, T.Haines, T.Clark, T.Alsop, J.Coles, J.Simpson (capt, wk), F.Hudson-Prentice, J.Carson, D.Lamb, O.Robinson and J.Seales.

Ben Debenham and Paul Pollard.

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