Men’s T20 Blast: Surrey march on, Gloucestershire claim first win, Rapids beat Durham
Looking to win this competition for the first time, Surrey were always on top of Sussex from the moment Will Jacks (43) and Dom Sibley (45) hammered a 52-run opening stand from the opening five overs.
Although the tournament’s third-highest run scorer, Jason Roy was out for a two-ball duck but Sam Curran took up the mantle with 38 before Ollie Sykes provided some late fireworks.
The 20-year-old, playing only his eighth game in this format for Surrey, thrashed four sixes and two fours for a career-best 44 not out.
The target of 211 always looked out of reach for the visitors as the home side’s powerful bowling attack of Reece Topley (3-34) and Tom Curran (2-24) took three early wickets between them to reduce Sussex to 14-3.
Match scorecards
Tom Clark (45) and Danny Lamb (49) offered brief resistance for Sussex, but with Mitchell Santner (3-26) and Chris Jordan (1-35) also among the wickets Surrey’s latest win sends out a clear warning to the rest of the teams in the competition.
Having been the surprise package to win the competition for the first time last year, Gloucestershire have endured a miserable defence so far, losing their opening five matches, but victory at Kent keeps alive their slim hopes of making it out of the South Group.
Once again it was Ajeet Singh Dale who impressed with the ball as he picked up his second successive three-wicket haul (3-24) to help limit Kent to 157-9 after they had chosen to bat.
Fresh from a stunning century against Somerset on Sunday, Daniel Bell-Drummond (3) became one of Singh Dale’s victims and the home side were indebted to Tawanda Muyeye (33), Harry Finch (42) and captain Sam Billings (38) but they could only add 34 runs from their final five overs.
Gloucestershire made the run chase look comfortable by winning with 10 balls to spare but not before the weather caused a brief stoppage.
After hammering a six, D’Arcy Short (33) found the sun shining straight into his eyes and the umpires took the players off the pitch until it had disappeared behind the stands.
The break did not change the direction of the match as Ollie Price (41*) and skipper Jack Taylor (54*) came together to share an unbroken fourth-wicket stand of 98 and finally get off the mark.