A week ago, Josh Blake was a Surrey hero, playing a crucial innings to boost his boyhood club’s hopes of maintaining their Division One status. Now, the club have announced he will leave at the end of the season.

Blake has been at the club since he was a child, but his path hasn’t been straightforward. He dropped out of the Surrey age-group pathway at U15s but carried on playing club cricket, and played in Australia as a teenager to further his development. Having spent four years working as a community coach for the Surrey Cricket Foundation, he was given an opportunity to play second XI cricket. He signed his first professional contract for the club aged 23.

However, his opportunities to play first team cricket for Surrey over the last five years have been limited. Going into this season, he had only played in the County Championship for Surrey three times, and his only two appearances in the T20 Blast came in 2023. He was not required to bat on either occasion. Most of his Surrey career has been in the One Day Cup, in which he has played 36 games since 2022, and averages 35.12.

While Blake’s departure from the club might have barely registered a couple of months ago, the timing of the announcement has struck a chord. Blake starred against Yorkshire last week, playing in the Championship side in the midst of an injury and England-caused availability crisis – none of Dan Lawrence, Sam Curran, Jamie Smith, or Will Jacks were available to play in the fixture. With Surrey staring down slipping into the relegation zone, having been bowled out for 83 in the first innings, Blake hit a determined unbeaten 43 in the second as Surrey chased down 185 with one wicket remaining.

After announcing this morning that Blake had signed a mulit-year deal with another county, reportedly Leicestershire, Surrey subbed Blake out of their side to bring in Ollie Pope for their ongoing match against Sussex. Pope had been unavailable to play on day one, having spent the morning at Edgbaston before being released from England’s Test squad.

The timing of the announcement appears odd. Off the back of a starring role in their Yorkshire win, a homegrown talent, with a compelling story of fighting his way back onto the club’s books, was booted out of the playing XI after announcing he was leaving to play first team cricket elsewhere. Incidentally, Pope was bowled by Tom Haines for two as Surrey slipped to 47-3 in their first innings.

Equally, it fits into a wider perception of Surrey prioritising poaching big talent from other counties, sometimes at the expense of homegrown players. Surrey won the race earlier this summer to secure rising England talent Henry Crocombe from Sussex, who couldn’t afford to keep him. Only one of Surrey’s frontline bowlers in their attack at Hove today came through their pathway systems. Their two spinners, Mahipal Lomror and Rahul Chahar, have been brought in from India for the back end of the season.

Nevertheless there is a certain unfairness in pinning Blake’s departure as an example of Surrey not valuing their own. Surrey’s top four are all homegrown, and bringing in players from elsewhere also has a basis in the volume of players they lose to England during the summer. Of the two options to drop out of the XI to facilitate Pope today, the other was Adam Thomas, another homegrown talent.

At 28, Blake spied a better opportunity elsewhere, at a county Surrey are currently competing with to stay in Division One. At Leicestershire, Blake will likely have more options to keep, and will get more opportunities to play first XI cricket away from Surrey’s stacked card.

For Blake’s career, the move makes perfect sense, even if the timing is slightly jarring.

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