As we look ahead to Sunday’s Vitality Blast match against Somerset at The Kia Oval, Richard Spiller looks back 125 years to a clash between the two sides which produced one of the club’s great moments
As Bobby Abel approached Surrey’s County Championship match against Somerset in 1899, he could be forgiven a feeling of apprehension.
Now 41, the slightly built professional – who was just 5ft 4in and might have been mistaken for a jockey – knew his eyesight was failing, an even bigger problem for players of that time given there were no sightscreens.
He had scored more than 2,000 runs in each of the previous four seasons but the new summer had brought lean times.
In eight innings over six matches, his highest score was 63 against Leicestershire, at Grace Road, 184 runs in all coming at 23.
Was the man known by his legion of loyal fans at The Oval as “The Guv’nor”, beginning to fade away?
The next three days, in a game which started on May 29, proved exactly the opposite.
Restored to opening the innings after two matches in the middle-order, Abel made an unbeaten 357, which remains the highest first-class individual score for Surrey and was a ground record for the next 39 years.
Abel was able to use his lack of height to cut and pull – proving especially prolific on the onside – but could drive well too. Somerset, who four years earlier had suffered while Archie McLaren made 424 at Taunton, could only admire as Abel batted 515 minutes, hitting 38 fours and a six at a time when the entire playing surface was used regardless of where the pitch was situated. Fitness was important given his knock included seven all-run fives.
His innings was the centrepiece of Surrey amassing 811, the main support coming from Tom Hayward – who stroked 158 in fourth wicket alliance of 334 – and 20 year-old Frank Crawford, whose 129 was his maiden first-class century in a sixth-wicket alliance of 211.
Abel carried his bat through the innings, Somerset’s foot-sore bowlers led by Frank Gill – who claimed 4-170 – and Coote Hedley (3-105).
The visitors gained little respite, soon being in trouble at 13-2 and being bowled out for 234, thanks to William Trask (70) and John Daniell (50), and following on were despatched for 198 to be beaten by an innings and 379 runs. Surrey’s star with the ball was Tom Richardson, who took four wickets in each innings, his final victim of the match taking the mighty fast bowler to 1,050 Championship wickets.
Under Kingsmill Key, Surrey went on to win their first title since 1895 and sixth of the decade, bringing to a close a golden period for the club. It was Key’s third success, one of five of the club’s captains to achieve that feat – following predecessor John Shuter, with Stuart Surridge, Adam Hollioake and Rory Burns coming later.
Abel finished a vintage season with 2,404 runs to his credit, going on to a remarkable eight successive seasons in which he achieved 2,000 or more, the best coming in 1901 when he grossed 3,309.
A man born in Rotherhithe, who played his early cricket in Southwark Park and died in Stockwell in 1936, aged 79. He played just 13 Tests, which were fewer and further between in those days and because the national selectors had reservations about his eyesight. They had a point, given he was blind in the latter stages of his life, but it was good enough to take 587 catches. His 33,128 first-class runs, including 74 centuries underline that he was one of Surrey’s greatest players.
Abel’s 357 was to remain the ground record at The Oval until Len Hutton surpassed it in 1938, making 364 for England against Australia. The honour is now held by Lancashire’s Neil Fairbrother, who made 366 for Lancashire against Surrey in 1990.
