Surrey relegated to Division Two

Surrey has been relegated to the County Championship Division Two after events at Liverpool and the Oval made relegation a mathematical certainty.

Surrey earned just two points after being bowled out for 267 in its final game of the season against Nottinghamshire.

The richest first class county club started the current round of matches 16 points adrift of Yorkshire and Lancashire, and the allocation of bonus points across the three matches means they now no longer have a mathematical chance of staying up.

With Lancashire gaining the necessary points at Liverpool against Kent, the Brown Caps were mathematically relegated before lunchtime, confirming them as the first team to go down this season, and leaving Yorkshire and Lancashire to battle to avoid taking the last place.

This will be Surrey’s second drop in four seasons. Surrey also failed to qualify for the Friends Provident Trophy and Twenty20 Cup zones and remain in the Pro40 second division.

While Gloucestershire is in the same position in Division Two, no side has gone through a county season without winning a Championship match since Durham in 1996 when the old one division structure was still in place.