Surrey used to find it impossible to win a Sunday/National League match at the St Lawrence Ground, Canterbury, but yesterday's comfortable five-wicket triumph completed a hat-trick of Lions' victories in the competition at Kent's headquarters. Although promotion for Surrey was already highly unlikely before this contest, the visitors were delighted to keep a large crowd silent for virtually the whole match while dashing the Spitfires' equally remote chances of bouncing straight back into the first division.

Most of the early arrivals at the match had been transfixed to the televisions around the ground as England claimed an extremely tense two-run victory in the second Ashes Test at Edgbaston, and the huge cheer that greeted Michael Kasprowicz's dismissal was not to be repeated during an unexceptional totesport League match. Having elected to bat on winning the toss, Kent never looked likely to post a challenging total as Tim Murtagh, leading an inexperienced Surrey seam attack with distinction, ensured that the Spitfires were unable to get away to a flying start. Murtagh's opening burst of 7-2-18-1 included the valuable scalp of Martin van Jaarsveld for thirteen after Jade Dernbach had accounted for Joe Denly, who was caught at second slip for a duck in the fourth over. When Neil Saker then slipped a delivery through the drive of the dangerous Andrew Hall and lured Matt Walker into popping back a return catch from a fine slower ball, the hosts were struggling at 82-4 after eighteen overs. Excellent mid-innings spells from the spin duo of Ian Salisbury (9-0-35-1) and Nayan Doshi (9-0-47-1) then further strangled the scoring rate as the Kent batsmen failed to notch a single boundary between the twenty-second and the thirty-fifth overs. Niall O'Brien, with a career-best limited-overs score of forty-three, and James Tredwell threatened a late surge during a seventh-wicket stand of 57 in 65 balls, but the loss of both men to further slower balls from the returning Saker ensured that the Spitfires would not register a total much beyond two-hundred on a good pitch. The young Surrey seamer's most promising totesport League appearance so far yielded him career-best figures of four for 43, while Murtagh returned the equally creditable analysis of 9-2-28-3 after terminating the Spitfires' innings on 211 with two wickets in the final over.

Surrey's reply then hit the rocks inside six overs as Hall's fine opening spell brought him the wickets of James Benning, Stewart Walters and Mark Ramprakash at a personal cost of one run in the space of eight deliveries. At 25-3, with Ian Salisbury and Tim Murtagh as high as numbers seven and eight in the batting order, the Lions suddenly looked to be in deep trouble and clearly needed a steadying partnership between Jon Batty and Ali Brown. Luckily for the visitors, the fourth-wicket pair were up to the task, taking full toll of some unimpressive spin bowling from Rob Ferley and James Tredwell to add 117 from just 122 balls, with Batty completing a 63-ball half-century just an over before Brown reached the same mark at exactly a run a ball. When Brown - who made 65 from 55 balls - perished to a catch on the boundary edge at wide long-off, Surrey's target was down to a fairly straightforward sixty-seven runs from almost nineteen overs, but their lack of batting depth meant that Kent would still be in the game if they could capture another quick wicket. Fortunately for the Lions, Rikki Clarke stood firm with Batty while Matt Walker surprisingly persevered with his spinners rather than bringing back a wicket-taking bowler such as Martin Saggers. Consequently, Batty and Clarke were able to work the ball around the field and move their team to within thirty-two runs of their target before the returning Simon Cook 'castled' the Surrey wicketkeeper for a fine eighty-two with a ball that nipped back off the seam. Clarke then saw off the final two overs from the excellent Hall - who finished with 3-35 - before taking his side through to an ultimately comfortable victory with twenty-two balls to spare.

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