Fisher, Atkinson give Surrey the edge in de facto season showdown

An option off the table in this week vote for the new County Championship format featured a final between the top two to determine a champion. A late summer showdown after a 13-match season, a spice grenade thrown in the first-class slow-cooker, just to feel alive again.

It seems more likely that the status quo - a 10-8 split, 14-match campaign - will win out. The other option is a top tier of two pools of six teams, playing home and away. The top three in each pool play against the other three, with the winner determined as champion on points in that mini-league.

But on Monday, with eight matches washed out completely, the sole focus of the opening day of the penultimate round of 2025 was at the Kia Oval, where a title-determining fixture breezed through its first 94 overs, despite a couple of showers.

Just a point split Surrey and Nottinghamshire at the top of Division One coming into this fixture. By stumps, the defending champions had increased that to four, skittling the visitors for 231 for three bonus points before closing on 43 for 1 in reply.

Neither county, by the way, are sold on change. Surrey are in favour of more of the same. Nottinghamshire's board, as reported in The Cricketer, are more amenable to a reduction, though their members seem minded to disagree.

The folly of it all is that this de facto final also serves as a reminder of the wrangle for sporting integrity. This is the first time Surrey and Nottinghamshire have met this season, the pitfall of squaring a 10-team top division into 14 fixtures. Should they both end the season in the top-two spots, it would be the fourth season in a row that county champions and runners-up have squared up just the once.

It is a quirk of circumstance given the previous three runners-up have all been different (Lancashire 2022, Essex 2023, Hampshire 2024). And a reflection of Surrey's dominance and robust squad depth that they've prevailed in each of those previous seasons - traits which are no less apparent coming into the final eight days of this summer.

Gus Atkinson, now England's more than Surrey's, was typically incisive for his 4 for 41. He is likely to be utilised as a load-bearing bowler for the winter's Ashes, and got the ball rolling with the early removal of Nottinghamshire skipper Haseeb Hameed. But it was Matthew Fisher, brought in to cover for Atkinson's international duties (and, as it turned out, absences through injury) who ended up leading the line with 5 for 61, his first five-wicket haul for Surrey after four previous such hauls for Yorkshire.

Fisher's move down from Headingley to south London was a familiar story - a player hoping a new challenge will reignite a career that had looks to have struck a ceiling. By and large, it has, even if the numbers do not quite tell that story.

It took nine innings for Fisher to reach double-figures for his new club, at the end of June, despite stitching together some good spells in that period. His efforts spoke of the promise that had brought about his one and only Test cap, on an unforgiving Bridgetown pitch and in even more unforgiving circumstances, given that he featured on that trip as a (premature) replacement for Stuart Broad and James Anderson.

Now that that pair have finally left the scene, the likes of Atkinson and Nottinghamshire quick Josh Tongue have shunted Fisher down the pecking order, to the extent his winter remains free. Could a Lions spot on this winter's tour of Australia be in the offing? As England look for insurance with their quicks, and with Brendon McCullum confirming that that trip will play a key back-up role for the Ashes, it would make a lot of sense.

Fisher was undoubtedly Surrey's best with the Kookaburra ball - more so than South Australian Dan Worrall who was reared on them - and has added consistency and endurance to his naturally hard length and knack of challenging both edges of the bat.

He was originally introduced after 20 overs as the fifth bowler used, by which point Nottinghamshire had made it to 51 for 1. After a five-over spell from the Vauxhall End, he switched to the Micky Stewart Pavillion End and earned a much-needed breakthrough ten balls later.

Profitting from extra juice from that end, Fisher went wide on the crease from around the wicket, angling into Freddie McCann then leaving him, clipping the edge on the way. A second leftie was sent back soon after when Ben Slater, composed for his 50 from 95 deliveries, fell victim to a better version of the McCann delivery; fuller, straighter, leaving Slater powerless while doing the needful of protecting his off stump just in case.

Those dismissals were the first two of the final eight to fall for just 142, but the collapse felt avoidable. Joe Clarke had played engagingly for 29 before needlessly chasing a wide delivery from Atkinson with an angled bat. Brett Hutton's unbeaten 30, while motivated by an imminent end to Nottinghamshire's first innings, demonstrated that the surface still rewarded application, having last been used against Somerset at the end of April.

South African keeper-batter Kyle Verreynne was slowly compiling before Fisher, tighter to the stumps, nipped one into middle from an initial line outside off, for a plumb lbw. Though he did receive a bit of tap as Nottinghamshire swung from the hip in pursuit of bonus points - Hutton deposited him over square leg for the innings' only six - rewards duly came. Tongue's booming drive brought a fifth catch for Ben Foakes, before Pennington's wild hack left his front shin unguarded for a second leg-before.

Fisher barely celebrated, jarring his right knee as he turned sharply to appeal to the umpire. He soon shook that off, leading the team back into the dressing room, ball aloft. Whatever is to come in the County Championship, both this season and next, Fisher's present and immediate future looks far more assured.