The 2025 English county cricket season begins on 4 April when 18 counties will play across Divisions One and Two of the Rothesay County Championship.

Surrey, the modern-day titans of the county game, have been champions of Division One for the past three seasons and will again be favourites to retain the trophy.

With a whole stack of England players, Rory Burns’ side will be fearless in hoping to become the first side to win four titles in a row since they won the Championship seven times in a row between 1952 and 1958.

They will compete against Yorkshire, Sussex, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire,  Worcestershire, Durham, Essex, Somerset and Hampshire in Division One, while eight other counties will compete in Division Two.

2024 season

After retaining the county title in 2023, the Oval-based side once again topped Division One with a 17-point margin over Hampshire.

They won eight of their 14 games, only losing twice, with one coming in the middle of seven straight wins, and picked up innings victories four times.

Captain Rory Burns top-scored with the bat as his 1,073 runs at an average of 53.65 were the fifth-best in the division.

Australian Dan Worrall continued his outstanding stint with the club by taking 52 wickets at an average of 16.15.

He finished as the fourth-highest wicket-taker in the top tier and no one in the top 70 averaged less than him.

With most of their senior players taking part in The Hundred, their second-string team finished seventh in Group B of the Metro Bank One Day Cup with only two wins in eight games, which came back-to-back towards the end of their campaign.

Ryan Patel was the side’s leading scorer with 363 runs at 45.37, while fellow all-rounder Cameron Steel topped the club’s wicket charts for the tournament, taking 17 wickets at 21.82.

As one of the strongest T20 sides, they finished top of the Vitality Blast’s South Group, having won nine of 14 games.

A five-wicket victory at home to Durham in the quarter-finals took them through to Finals Day at Edgbaston, where they faced Somerset in the last four.

Chris Jordan’s side batted first and totalled 153/9, as Dom Sibley top-scored with 48.

They then reduced Somerset to 7/3 as Worrall and Tom Curran destroyed the top-order but James Rew and Sean Dickson stunned them.

A 144-run partnership took them within inches of a place in the final and they reached their target with eight balls left, as they especially targeted spinners Steel and Dan Lawrence.

England wicketkeeper Jamie Smith starred in the competition with a strike rate of 203.57, as he made 285 runs at 35.62.

Curran led the way with the ball, taking 16 wickets at 13.68 as he and younger brother Sam spurred on the county’s hopes.

Squad

Surrey will head into 2025 under the tutelage of former spinner Gareth Batty for the fourth consecutive season.

The 47-year-old took interim charge for the 2022 campaign after head coach Vikram Solanki left in January of that year to take over at Gujarat Titans in the IPL, and was appointed permanently at the end of that year after winning the County Championship.

The off-spinner took 532 wickets across all formats for the county in 16 seasons, while he also made 19 appearances for England and spent time with Yorkshire and Worcestershire in a 24-year career.

He will once again work alongside club captain Rory Burns, who took over from Batty himself before the 2018 season.

The former England Test opener has led the side to four county titles and scored over 14,000 runs since making his debut in 2011.

The 34-year-old scored three centuries in 32 Tests, which included one against Australia in the 2019 Ashes.

Burns will captain the first-class and List A sides, with all-rounder Sam Curran leading the T20 outfit after replacing Chris Jordan.

The 26-year-old made his debut for the Brown Caps aged 17 in 2015 and has scored over 4,000 runs and taken 261 wickets in 166 matches.

He has also played 117 times for England and starred in the 2022 T20 World Cup, being named the Player of the Tournament after taking 13 wickets at 11.38, including 3/12 against Pakistan in the final.

Director of Cricket Alec Stewart has taken up a new part-time role as high-performance cricket advisor after 11 years in his previous role.

The champions have brought in three overseas players for the season, with one of them making a return after being part of their previous title-winning seasons.

That man is West Indian Kemar Roach, who has signed a deal to play in their first four Championship matches, after featuring in each of their past three successful seasons.

He will be joined by New Zealand all-rounder Nathan Smith, who is set to be available for first-class and T20 cricket throughout the season after leaving Worcestershire.

Fellow Kiwi Mitchell Santner will join him for the Blast, with the Black Caps’ white-ball captain being available for all of the group stage and knockout rounds.

Last season’s overseas players Sean Abbott, Spencer Johnson, Sai Sudharsan and Shakib Al Hasan are yet to renew their deals.

Another player they have signed is Yorkshire fast bowler Matthew Fisher, who has signed a one-year deal at the Oval.

The 27-year-old made a solitary Test appearance for England in 2022 and has taken 144 red-ball wickets at 26.58, as well as 78 in limited-overs cricket.

He made his debut for the White Rose as a 15-year-old in 2013 and appeared in their title-winning season in 2015.

Ben Geddes, Conor McKerr and Amar Virdi have all departed the club in search of more opportunities.

Geddes has joined neighbours Middlesex until the end of the 2027 season after struggling for regular playing time at the Oval.

The 23-year-old scored 1,180 runs for Surrey in 41 matches, including two first-class centuries.

Fast bowler McKerr has joined Nottinghamshire after a previous loan spell at Trent Bridge in 2023.

The South African-born 27-year-old took 100 wickets in 62 matches in his time in South London but also had seven short-term spells away from the county as was often overlooked in their first-choice team.

He has also signed a three-year deal at his new county.

Virdi has left the club after taking 130 wickets with his off-spin, including 39 in the 2018 championship season.

The 26-year-old was named as a reserve player for two England squads during Covid but has since fallen out of favour in the capital and spent time on loan at Somerset and Worcestershire in recent seasons.

He is yet to sign for another county.

13 Surrey players will take part in The Hundred this season: Jamie Smith, Dan Worrall, Ollie Pope, Jamie Overton (all London Spirit), Mitchell Santner, Tom Lawes (both Northern Superchargers), Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Tom Curran, Gus Atkinson (all Oval Invincibles), Chris Jordan and Laurie Evans (both Southern Brave).

Full squad (as of 04/04/25):

Batters – Rory Burns (CC and OD captain), Laurie Evans, Dan Lawrence, Dom Sibley, Ollie Sykes

All-rounders – Sam Curran (T20 captain), Jordan Clark, Tom Curran, Tommy Ealham, Will Jacks, Tom Lawes, Jamie Overton, Ryan Patel, Mitchell Santner (O), Nathan Smith (O), Cameron Steel

Wicketkeeepers – Josh Blake, Ben Foakes, Ollie Pope, Jamie Smith

Fast bowlers – Gus Atkinson, Nathan Barnwell, Matt Dunn, Matthew Fisher, Chris Jordan, Kemar Roach (O), Seb Stuart-Reckling, James Taylor, Reece Topley

Spinners – Yousef Majid

Overseas Players

Kemar Roach has shone in his time in South London, taking 93 wickets at 25.60 in just 28 appearances since first joining in 2021.

The 36-year-old took 20 wickets on Surrey’s way to the title last year and has 419 international wickets in a 16-year career for the West Indies.

He sits fifth on the list of Test wicket-takers from the Caribbean with 284 and has appeared in multiple World Cups.

Nathan Smith only made his international debut in November but has already taken 19 wickets for New Zealand.

The 26-year-old took 27 wickets at 21.14 for Worcestershire last season and finished as their joint-leading wicket-taker, despite only playing seven games.

Since his professional debut in 2016, he has taken 154 first-class and 67 T20 wickets, averaging less than 27 in both, as well as scoring one century in the former.

His fellow countryman Mitchell Santner will arrive off the back of leading the Black Caps to the final of the Champions Trophy and playing in the IPL for Mumbai Indians.

The left-arm off-spinner has 300 wickets for New Zealand across all formats, as well as one Test hundred, and has also played county cricket for Worcestershire before.

The 33-year-old has played T20 franchise cricket in India, the Caribbean and the USA and appeared in The Hundred for Northern Superchargers last year.

Key Player

Whilst having many England internationals who will be in and out of the Surrey side during the season, they also have a strong core of experienced county players who have been key in their recent success.

Australian fast bowler Dan Worrall has been one of them since moving to the Oval in 2022 and his performances have been so impressive that he earned calls for him to be in the England team ahead of next winter’s Ashes.

The Melbourne-born 33-year-old played three ODIs for Australia in 2016 but signed as a local player for Surrey due to having a UK passport and has taken 155 wickets across all formats at 21.65.

He was the fourth-highest wicket-taker in Division One last season, having played fewer games than the three bowlers ahead of him, and will once again be expected to excel with his swing bowling in English conditions.

Despite numerous shouts for him to be called up by Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes, it appears unlikely that they will go for a 33-year-old instead of a younger prospect, but if Worrall impresses again in the early rounds of the County Championship then it would be hard for them not to take a look at him.

One to look out for

Although Surrey are the richest county in the game and can sign almost anyone they want, a big part of their long-term stature as one of the biggest and most successful sides in the country is their youth development.

In the current squad, 20 players made their professional debuts for the county and one of them is Ollie Sykes, who may be their next upcoming star.

The 20-year-old batter was named the 2024 Wisden Schools Cricketer of the Year after scoring 935 runs and taking 30 wickets for Tonbridge School and subsequently signed a rookie contract with Surrey in July.

By the end of the season, he had made his debut across all formats and played a stylish innings of 87 off 56 balls in the One Day Cup against Essex in an 89-run victory.

It is unlikely to be long before he makes his England Lions debut and he could play a role in Surrey’s Division One season if the likes of Ollie Pope, Jamie Smith and Sam Curran are all playing for England during the season.

If they do not sign an overseas batter then Sykes could take a spot in the middle-order during the summer and could show more proof of his ability, this time against the red ball.

Although mainly a batter, the right-armer could chip in with a few wickets to help him make a greater impression and join the line of talented cricketers produced by the county in recent years.

Prediction

After winning three titles in a row and having a seemingly endless depth of international-quality cricketers, it appears very unlikely that Surrey will not win a fourth consecutive County Championship.

Rory Burns has more experience than any other captain in leading a successful team and will not let his side slip away from their dominant position in the game.

With several England players set to take part throughout the season, they will certainly have the strongest side in the competition and failure to win Division One again would be seen as a giant upset.

The One Day Cup will be a lot harder with a second-string side but they could be an underdog to make the quarter-finals if young players like Sykes shine.

Despite being one of the strongest T20 sides in recent years, they have somehow not won the Blast since the inaugural edition in 2003 but that should change this year.

With Santner available for all of the group stage and knockout rounds and Sam Curran stepping up as captain, they will have be vastly experienced and if they can also call on the likes of Jason Roy and Laurie Evans they will have the most dangerous batting lineup in the competition.

Although Finals Day is never an easy task to pass for any side, Surrey should finally end their long drought and win the competition.

Surrey’s county season gets underway on Friday 4 April when they will visit Essex at the County Ground in Chelmsford.