KENT V SURREY - NatWest T20 Blast - 15 July 2016
Surrey 180-8 (20 overs). Kent 181-2 (19.4 Overs). Kent won by 8
wickets.There were no press-ups on the square
but Kent's Daniel Bell-Drummond threw off his helmet and leapt,
punching the air after his unbeaten 112 eased Spitfires to an
eight-wicket NatWest T20 Blast win over Surrey in Tunbridge Wells.
The former Millfield School and England Under-19
opener captivated a 5,000 sell-out crowd at the Royal Spa Town venue
with a maiden List A hundred that helped post Kent's sixth south group
win that kept his side's qualification hopes alive.
Needing 181 for victory at an asking rate of 9.1 an
over for victory, Kent made a miserable start when Joe Denly went for
a first ball duck when playing back to Sam Curran's second ball of the
night.
In his first game back and having been sidelined for
three weeks with a hand injury, Bell-Drummond took up the attack,
cleverly using the pace of the ball to steer the ball to all parts.
The right-hander might have gone for 31 when Tom
Curran downed a leg-side clip at mid-wicket, but he cashed in by
lofting a straight six later in Jade Dernbach's over as Kent reached
57 for one in their powerplay.
Sam Northeast then launched a leg-side six off Zafar
Ansari as he and Bell-Drummond eased to a second-wicket record in
matches against Surrey beating the 92 set by Rob Key and Martin van
Jaarsveld at The Oval in 2009.
Bell-Drummond raised his 50 from 28 balls, Northeast
needed 32 to reach the same milestone with four fours and two sixes
and the records continued as the pair posted Kent's highest
second-wicket T20 stand against any county, beating the 135 raised by
Denly and Azhar Mahmood against Gloucestershire at Beckenham in 2011,
which had been equalled in 2014 by Rob Key and Northeast against
Somerset in Canterbury.
The fun ended when Northeast (57) went back to cut
Ansari only to edge to the keeper, but their partnership of 151 had
eclipsed, by one run, Kent's record T20 stand for any wicket against
all counties set by Bell-Drummond and Denly against Somerset in May.
Bell-Drummond - who also posted his 1,000th T20
career run during the innings - marched on to his maiden limited overs
hundred by pulling his 58th delivery from Gareth Batty through
mid-wicket for his 14th four.
With three needed off the final over, Bell-Drummond
lent on his bat with 112 to his name at the non-striker's end to watch
Sam Billings clip the winning boundary with two balls to spare.
At the start of the night Jason Roy gave Surrey a
flying start after they chose to bat only for Kent's wily bowling
attack to claw back the run rate in the middle overs and restrict them
to 180 for eight.
Roy plundered an early boundary off Darren Stevens
then a hat-trick of sixes off the first over of the night by Kagiso
Rabada, the second of which caused a stir in the CAMRA real ale
marquee.
Dominating the strike, Roy raced to a 28 ball 50
with five fours and four maximums, but miscued the next ball from
Stevens to Rabada at mid-off.
Starved of the strike, Aaron Finch (7) made a
desperate attempt to clear the ropes against David Griffiths only to
pick out Rabada at deep mid-wicket as Surrey ended their powerplay
overs on 69 for two.
James Tredwell came on at the Pavilion End and saw
his first delivery sail out of the park, but the shrewd off-spinner
barely put a foot wrong thereafter turning the innings on its head
with a four-over stint of three for 32.
Tredwell held one back to deceive and bowl Tom
Curran (12) then Steven Davies (23) yorked himself when trying to
advance down the pitch to make it 108 for four.
Lured by the short, straight boundary Dominic Sibley
(14) also marched down the pitch heaving at Tredwell only to be
stumped by Sam Billings.
Having conceded 21 off his opening over, Rabada -
the 21-year-old South Africa firebrand, returned with his dander up to
york Rory Burns (10) and concede only 10 runs off his final three
overs.
With Surrey's run rate plummeting Chris Morris (25)
called for a second run to deep mid-wicket and was run out by Adam
Ball's throw from the deep then, in the final over, Sam Curran (19)
was bowled by Mitch Claydon a Surrey fell well short of their
anticipated total.
Spitfires hero and man-of-the match Daniel
Bell-Drummond, who dedicated his innings to Michael Carberry, the
Hampshire batsman facing a battle with cancer who mentored him during
his youth, said: "To play like that after three weeks out through
injury was amazing, it was beyond my wildest dreams. I started the
week seeing a specialist about my thumb injury and ended it scoring my
maiden T20 hundred. It was a brilliant feeling.
"I've missed playing but hopefully that knock showed
the hunger I have. I'm feeling a lot fresher than the rest of the lads
because they've been toiling in the dirt while I've been trying to
shake off this injury. We had training yesterday and I stayed behind
for an extra session because I felt a little undercooked, needless to
say, the other guys were thinking 'there's no need for that'.
"Jason Roy got them off to a brilliant start and
Davies and the Currans carried it on, but we did really well to pull
it back through James Tredwell and then Sam and I almost saw it home."
Surrey's spinner Zafar Ansari said the visitors felt
their total of 180 for eight was 20 short of a par score. "No one
played badly but, when the pressure was on to up the tempo, nobody
seemed able to get the crucial boundary away when we needed it," he
said.
"We weren't ever really in a position to build a
partnership that might have got us nearer to 200. But all credit to
Daniel Bell-Drummond. All our bowlers said it felt like he knew where
they were going to bowl it. It all went his way, there was no luck, it
was a high quality innings."
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