Gareth Batty: Rising stars are making Surrey’s future look bright

The last few weeks have been very positive for the side with individuals making big contributions. Most pleasing of all are some performances from our youngsters.

Take a look at the statistics from our win at Derbyshire. Tom Curran, a 19-year-old fast-medium bowler who had played only five first-class games before this one, took five for 51 in the first innings.

Then, when we batted and needed to establish a decent first-innings lead, 22-year-old Zafar Ansari responded with 105.

It’s his second consecutive big score, following his 98 in our drawn game at Gloucestershire earlier this month. Throw in his four for 96 in Derbyshire’s second innings, which helped set us a simple victory target, and you can see why so many people are starting to talk about him. It’s not just those two, either. At Gloucester, Rory Burns, 23, scored 199 and in the same game Matt Dunn, a very exciting fast bowler, took four for 37 in the first innings. At 22, he is another outstanding prospect.

When young players start to find their feet, the future is usually bright.

What you need is a core of experienced players around them to show them the way. That is the job of players like Vikram Solanki, Hashim Amla, Steve Davies and myself. It’s a role I’ve always relished and I’m enjoying it as much as ever.

It’s not all about youngsters, though. Davies’ first-innings century really gave us the chance to dominate the game. After some very hard yards in the field the week before, to walk away with the points this week was extremely pleasing and puts us in a great position for the second half of the season.