SURREY V KENT at the Kia Oval (Metro Bank One-Day Cup)
11 AUGUST 2023

Eighth in Group A of the Metro Bank One-Day Cup plays host to fifth; and it's a clash that would appear to be a "must not lose" for both sides, even though Surrey have only had one completed match in this year's competition while Kent have played just three.

One of the drawbacks with the Metro Bank One-Day Cup is the knockout phase is limited to the top three teams in each group of nine.

With the promise that unused Hundred players will be filtered back to their counties for the One-Day Cup – a departure from the first two iterations of the 100-ball tournament – surely it would have made far more sense to try and make every Metro Bank group match count by having the top four in each group going forward to battle out a standard round of quarter-finals.

Anyway, centuries from Ben Compton and Joey Evison helped defending champions Kent kick their 50-over campaign off in style, by recovering from an early collapse to edge out Yorkshire. But, like Surrey, the Spitfires were then undone by Leicestershire before losing to Lancashire.

To add to the hop county's woes Evison - who also made 182 runs at an average of 60.66 in Kent’s County Championship meetings with the Oval outfit this summer - and Marcus O’Riordan are both ruled out due to injury.

Apart from Evision and Compton, no one has made over 38 for the hop county this term. As for their bowling, Aussie James Bazley and 20-year-old Jaskaran Singh have been the stand-outs so far.

Surrey v Kent - List A Records Sheet

If they play, Surrey's Luke Griffiths and Kent's Arafat Bhuiyan and Jaydn Denly will be making their List A debuts. Jordan Clark (973) is approaching 1,000 List A career runs, while Ben Foakes (97) is closing in on a 100th List A dismissal. Of the Kent contingent, Daniel Bell-Drummond (3,419), Alex Blake (2,499) and Ben Compton (932) have significant List A run-making landmarks in their sights.

Surrey have named a 14-man squad that comprises the eleven who started the loss to Leicestershire plus keeper Josh Blake, seamer Luke Griffiths and spinner Amar Virdi.

Surrey's fortunes in List A cricket against Kent has been pretty chastening in recent times. In the last meeting the Oval outfit were bundled out for 127 and the time before that they were hammered by 220 runs. On this occasion, however, the absence of Joey Evison would appear to leave the Spitfires short of runs. All things being equal, this should be a great chance for the South Londoners to get their 50-over campaign back on track.

B.Compton, D.Bell-Drummond, J.Leaning (capt), A.Blake, H.Finch (wk), J.Bazley, G.Stewart, Hamid Qadri, M.Quinn, M.Parkinson and Arafat Bhuiyan.

Neil Bainton and Nigel Llong.

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