What’s it like to ‘work from home’ at the cricket?

It’s 11.57am on an overcast morning. The setting is an 181-year-old cricket ground in south London and the action is absorbing.

Seated in the long room of the members’ pavilion at The Oval, the home of Surrey County Cricket Club, amid the hubbub of families gathered around tables and fractious debate on the day’s play, it becomes clear that not everybody here has eyes on the action.

One member is pacing left and right, dealing with a crisis at work. Another has several highlighters to hand, going through his preparations before leading a church service tonight.

The more you look, the strange juxtaposition of corporate life and cricket’s traditional settings blur into one.

This is not an alternate universe. This has become the new norm, as working from home did during the Covid pandemic, for hundreds of Londoners each week who call The Oval their ‘office’.

The decline in attendances across England’s four-day domestic cricket competition, the County Championship, in favour of the short formats of the game — the T20 Blast and The Hundred — has been keenly felt in recent decades.

But Surrey have bucked the trend, their County Championship attendances better than any of the 17 other counties, thanks to schemes like ‘work from Oval’, introduced at the beginning of this season.

Jason Rice, 59, sits in the pavilion at a table far back from the action, laptop screen open, having just eaten lunch as a break from his work in property. Further down, Tom Barnardo, the 33-year-old church minister, goes through his service for the afternoon.

At the back of the JM Finn Stand, insurance advisor Richard Dixon and lecturer Peter Bray have one eye on the cricket and the other on their screens. Walking round The Oval, which will host the second Test between England and New Zealand this week, it is clear it has become a hive for work.

“I’ve been doing it before it became cool,” says Barnardo, a Surrey member of 10 years. “I call this my ‘Oval office’, and I try to get to every four-day game during the working week. Because I’m addicted to cricket, I stay in the same spot all day, meaning I get work done.

“Oh, that’s a good shot…” Barnardo breaks off as the sound of applause creeps through the glass panes, his love for the game evident.

“You do feel that you’re not invested in the match,” Rice says. “But that’s OK. I’ve noticed a lot more people doing it recently, unsurprising given the atmosphere and facilities.”

The scheme has encouraged members like Bray to come along — with his laptop.

“I’ve come to Surrey for years, but I’ve brought work along for the first time because I saw the advertising,” he says. “I’m here for the cricket, but I have too much work and too short deadlines, so I’ve been squeezing some work in during the intervals and stoppages.”

The setting largely reflects the makeup of an office, but instead of unbalanced air-conditioning, a refreshing breeze whistles by as the flags of Surrey, Hampshire (today’s opponents) and the Union Jack fly above the pavilion.

The sound of a clogging printer is replaced by sporadic sprinklings of applause and children gleefully playing with bat and ball in the concourses, 50 yards and 15 years away from a stage upon which they would dream to perform.

‘Work from Oval’ was seen as a perfect way to entice young adults into the ground during working hours, with Championship games traditionally lasting four days, from Friday to Monday.

Within a week of Surrey announcing the scheme, the club saw sales in 22-25-year-old memberships increase by five per cent, and the post totalled more than one million views on X. It is at its busiest on Fridays.

There was one instance last month where both of the designated areas, located in the West Indies and Pakistan terraces of the ground — collectively housing up to 80 people — reached capacity. Club staff scrambled to make more space.

The Oval has stools, tables and a Wi-Fi network that was upgraded over the winter to entice those to work.

George Smith, a 23-year-old PhD student who joined as a member this year, travels from Cambridge to complete university research. “I thought, ‘If I’m going to work, I might as well work from The Oval’,” he says.

“The scheme was more of an incentive to become a member,” Smith says. “The youth membership is great value, and things like this really incentivise me to come here.”

“We realised that people’s working habits had changed post-Covid and we wanted to lean into that,” says Surrey commercial director Adrian Wells. “There’s a notable amount of people that come in with backpacks and laptops to use the spaces provided, and we have seen a jump in our attendances. This is arguably the best office in the world.”

Surrey’s nous for getting people into The Oval is exemplified as morning becomes afternoon.

Six miles up the road, England are bowling New Zealand out at Lord’s to claim their first win of the Test summer. Within moments, Surrey announce that anybody with a match ticket from Lord’s can gain entry to The Oval for £5.

Over the next hour, more than 1,000 people arrive.

For its members, Surrey is worn like a badge of honour, but not all of those who come to work here are proud of it.

“The last thing I want is for my employer to find out where I am or what I’m doing,” says one, as he whisks out the door and shuns The Athletic’s request for a chat.

He should count his lucky stars that his boss did not choose the same conspicuous workplace setting.