By Jon Culley
SURREY skipper Chris Jordan said he wouldn’t “make any excuses” after a “tough week” as Surrey lost to defending champions Somerset in their Vitality Blast semi-final at Edgbaston last weekend.
Somerset had looked in big trouble at 7-3 chasing 154 but Sean Dickson (76 from 57 balls) and James Rew (62 not out from 44) shared a stand of 144 for the third wicket as Somerset powered into the final with eight balls to spare.
The win came just 48 hours after the west country side had pulled off a stunning victory at Taunton to cut Surrey’s lead as the Vitality County Championship heads for an exciting climax.
Having been put in, Surrey had collapsed from 69-1 to 114-6 before grafting out 153-9 in their innings, Somerset skipper Lewis Gregory (3-15) playing a superb hand with the ball as well as pulling off an excellent run-out, backed up by Josh Davey’s 3-34 after Dom Sibley had given the innings its only real substance with 48 from 36.
Dan Lawrence departed in the second over of Surrey’s innings when he sliced Davey high in the air on the off-side. Otherwise 62-1 from six was a solid start after being put in. Sibley lifted Davey into the crowd at wide long-on for the first six of the day
A double setback in the eighth over changed the picture somewhat as Gregory struck two massive blows, the canny all-rounder bowling Ollie Pope through the gate and nipping one past Jamie Smith’s outside edge to clip off stump, removing two England players with consecutive balls. Surrey, slightly shaken, were 86-3 at halfway.
Gregory turned the screw again, running out Rory Burns with a superb throw from extra cover after a poor call by Sibley, then taking his third wicket with the ball as Sibley found the fielder at wide long-on. When Tom Curran played on to Jake Ball, Surrey were 114-6 in the fifteenth.
Surrey could find no momentum, Gregory conceding just three in his final over. Laurie Evans landed a couple of blows against Ball but then Jordan, Evans and Jordan Clark all perished trying to clear the ropes, Davey picking up two of those in his final over.
If 153-9 looked meagre, it must have felt better to Surrey fans as Somerset were stung three times in the opening thirteen balls, Dan Worrall pinning Tom Kohler-Cadmore in front of leg stump and having Will Smeed wafting to be caught behind, either side of a leading edge to cover by Tom Abell off Tom Curran.
But from 7-3, Dickson and Rew – in for the sidelined Tom Banton – saw off the storm and turned 29-3 after the powerplay into 71-3 at halfway. They were behind the rate but looked to have the measure of the pitch.
Although they had three players back from Test duty, England’s T20 series against Australia robbed Surrey of four players from their first-choice side in this format and their absence was felt as Somerset turned that momentum into a proper charge over the next five overs.
Dickson, having already cleared the rope with a slog-sweep off Cameron Steel, picked up two more sixes off the leg-spinner, with Rew collecting maximums off Lawrence and Clark. With 30 balls remaining, they were just 26 away from a place in the final.
A couple of tight overs by Clark and Jordan will have set a few Somerset nerves twitching but they were settled as Rew, with his maiden T20 half-century in the bag, pulled Jordan for his third six and followed up by cutting him for four to bring the requirement down to three of the last two overs.
Dickson skewed one in the air to be caught at deep cover but that only invited skipper Gregory to hit the winning runs, which he did by slashing Clark high over third man for six.
Somerset, who will contest the final of the Metro Bank One-Day Cup next weekend, had their eyes on becoming the first side to complete a domestic treble since Warwickshire in 1994, but they lost to Gloucestershire in the final.
“We would have bowled first on that pitch as well but we got off to a pretty good start with the bat and with the wicket being a little bit tacky we felt it was a score we would have taken if you’d offered it to us at the beginning of the game,” Jordan said.
“The way the boys started in the powerplay, to knock over three of their key players, we were in a good position but you have to give credit to Dickson especially. It would have been easy to come out and rebuild in a more conventional fashion but he took a punt and it came off. After that it was tough to stop them. In between boundaries, he was rotating the strike really well. The way they played the spin made it tough for me in particular.
“I don’t want to make any excuses because we had players missing. Any eleven that we put out as a club we would back 100 per cent and I fully trusted the players that we put out today. It has been a tough week but that’s part of cricket and we can only look forward.”
