Surrey Browncaps v Kent Spitfires

Kent made it two Twenty20 Cup southern group wins from as many starts by landing a 13-run victory over Surrey in front of a sell-out crowd of 23,000 at The Brit Oval on Friday night.

Spitfires posted a very respectable 20-over total of 181-5 and then restricted the hosts, who lost to Essex in their opening game, to 168-7.

Browncaps’ openers James Benning and Scott Newman started their reply in dreadful light, yet Newman still plundered 17 from the opening over from Yasir Arafat.

Azhar Mahmood steadied the nerves by conceding only four off his first over and Arafat also tightened up his act considerably in his next over.

Mahmood, wanting to do well against his old club, did even better in the fourth over by leaking only two singles.

Arafat gave way at the Vauxhall End to Ryan McLaren, who duly struck with his fourth ball of the night by yorking Benning (17) to pluck out the right-hander’s leg stump.

Mark Ramprakash sidled in, with the light still deteriorating, but it was Newman who continued to impress by taking sixes in successive overs from Simon Cook.

Looking ill at ease Ramprakash, in trying to flick leg-side off McLaren found a leading edge which skied to Martin van Jaarsveld running in at long off.

Cook continued to be expensive, his three overs at the Pavilion End cost 39 runs, and at the half way stage Surrey were two runs ahead of Kent at the same stage.

But then McLaren took his third scalp by pegging back Ali Brown’s middle stump for 11 as the powerful right-hander bottom edged an attempted pull onto his own stumps.

Newman powered his way to 48 from 31 balls with eight fours and a six, but Cook was replaced by Stevens and he proved successful with his third ball of the night after enticing the left-hander to loft a drive to James Tredwell at long off.

Strangely or bravely, whichever way you look at it, Key opted to switch Cook to the Vauxhall End. He went for another eight runs but at least the right-armer picked up the wicket of Abdul Razzaq (7) with his last ball of the night, superbly caught at long off by Arafat just a foot inside the rope.

Bowling villain to fielding hero, Cook then flung himself to his left to take an excellent tumbling catch that accounted for Jonathan Batty (16) and at 131-6, Browncaps needed 51 off the last four overs for victory.

Left-hander Usman Afzaal kept them in touch with a six over extra cover off Arafat, but Surrey still had two overs from their nemesis, Mahmood to face.

With his third ball back Mahmood had Afzaal (21) superbly caught at deep mid-wicket by Stevens as Kent’s fielding and catching continued to dazzle in the gloom.

Surrey required 25 off the last over to win it, but Mahmood limited his old side to 11 and extended Kent’s impressive winning sequence.

McLaren bagged 3-28, Mahmood 1-21, but the entire Kent side take great credit for conceding only two extras in the entire innings, both of them leg byes.

At the start of the night Kent, who named an unchanged side, were denied the chance to continue their winning-cup formula of batting second after Surrey made them go in first, yet 181-5 was still a decent total.

Openers Rob Key (42) and Joe Denly reached 50 in six overs and went on to put on 80 in nine – the highest ever opening partnership against Surrey in the six years of Twenty20 competition.

Denly raced to 50 in 31 balls with two sixes and six fours before he lofted to long on.

Van Jaarsveld (3) looked uncomfortable in slogging from ball one and soon picked out Ramprakash at mid-wicket to make it 86-2.

Key then teamed up with Justin Kemp for some lusty hitting, they took 17 off one over from off-spinner Matthew Spriegel then went one better in an over from left-arm spinner Afzaal.

Key’s fun ended with his score on 42 from 31 balls when, in setting off for a crazy single to square leg, he was sent back by Kemp and duly run out by Pedro Collins.

Kemp reached 30 in 16 balls, including three sixes, before he drove to long on then, after a quickfire 13, Mahmood skied to extra cover to go in the penultimate over.

Darren Stevens, fresh from having his broken nose re-set by surgeons in Canterbury this morning, helped smash 17 off the last over from Jade Dernbach to take Kent to the fourth highest cup total against the Browncaps.

Stevens finished it with a one-handed six over extra cover to reach 31 not out from 18 balls.

For Surrey Razzaq took 2-32 and Collins 1-28, were the only bowlers to complete four overs.

Kent play their third Southern group qualifier on Saturday against Hampshire at The Rose Bowl. The game starts at 12.30pm.

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