Surrey bowler Overton backs side to win domestic double this season
Surrey bowler Jamie Overton believes they can win a domestic double after making an unbeaten start to the season that has lifted the club top of the County Championship.
The south Londoners drew their opening match with Warwickshire before cruising past Hampshire in a match that saw Overton take handy figures of 8-107.
The former Somerset paceman faces his old employer – and twin brother Craig – on Thursday when Division One’s bottom team visit the Oval.
“We all obviously want to win the County Championship, that’s the main one, and then it’s the Twenty20 competition,” Overton told City PM
“They’re the two big ones and I look at the changing room we’ve got and I think we can potentially very much easily win both.”
“You can’t look too far ahead of yourself. You look at Somerset in the last two or three years and they’ve been up near the top of the table – in all formats.
“They’ve had a couple of bad results recently but we know they’ve got a very strong side.
“It’s not going to be easy and we’ve got to do our stuff the right way. We’ve done very well in the last couple of weeks but we’re still pushing forward.”
Surrey are currently under the watchful eye of their former all-rounder Gareth Batty, who holds the head coach role on an interim basis after Vikram Solanki left the county for the Indian Premier League.
Twice this season Surrey have topped 400 runs in an innings and they began their home campaign with victory by an innings and 17 runs.
Tight knit group
“We had some conversations over the winter before Solanki left about trying to get a stronger unity within the squad,” Overton added.
“We’re feeling quite tight-knit at the moment. It obviously gets a little trickier when players start to travel but we’re going to try and keep it where everyone keeps feeling welcome.
“The Oval is an incredibly hard place to play, too. I was astonished when I came here [from Somerset in 2020] at the buzz the crowds give.
“We’re in a place where we want the fans to help tell the other teams that they’re up against it so we can use that to our advantage.”
Overton’s England hopes
Red ball cricket is in a little bit of a lull at the moment with the national side on a dire run of one win in 17 matches.
Overton has made no secrets about his wishes to be part of an England Test side, and like his brother – who has eight caps to his name – he is looking to use this potential window of opportunity to prove his worth to new managing director Rob Key and England’s incoming head coach and captain.
“I want to play for England in Test cricket,” Overton added.
“Moving here, I knew the wickets weren’t necessarily easy to bowl on, but if you’re going to play Test cricket you’re going to need to bowl on hard wickets and find a way of getting batters out.
“If I can keep doing what I am doing and keep challenging and moving forward, who knows what could happen. The end goal is playing for England and playing well for Surrey is a by-product of how I will get there.
“But if you start looking too far ahead, you can lose yourself quite easily. Test cricket is the pinnacle of the game and the long form of cricket is still the top goal.”