A sumptuous century from Steven Davies has lead Surrey to
a comfortable 9 wicket victory over reigning Champions Hampshire Royals in the
YB40.
After 4 wickets from Zafar Ansari helped to bowl the
opposition out for 228, a superb opening partnership of 162 between Davies (127*)
and captain Graeme Smith (74) all but sealed the victory on the hottest day of
the year at the Kia Oval.
On what looked like perfect batting conditions, Hampshire
won the toss and unsurprisingly elected to bat first. Of the 14 man squad, Tom
Jewell, Tom Curran and Tim Linley were the 3 to miss out, with Zander de Bruyn
once again being selected.
After a wayward couple of overs, we made an early
breakthrough when Michael Carberry got a slight nick on a Jade Dernbach
delivery. James Vince, fresh off the back of a superb century against Essex
last Friday, started to look dangerous and took a liking to Jon Lewis. However,
Lewis had the last laugh when he had him caught by Solanki.
Aussie T20 skipper George Bailey was then removed by
Zafar Ansari, before Gareth Batty had his first wicket, that of Jimmy Adams, as
Hampshire fell to 89-4. Liam Dawson and top scorer Sean Ervine (63) had to
rebuild the away side’s innings, and the run rate dropped because of that. 2
wickets in the space of two overs from Ansari really put us on top, as he had
Dawson caught by the skipper, before Davies stumped former Essex keeper Adam
Wheater.
However, while Ervine was at the crease, Hampshire were
always going to post a total of above 200, and he and Chris Wood shared a vital
39 run partnership before Wood was run out. Ervine was Ansari’s 4th
victim, giving the Cambridge all- rounder his best List A figures of 4-46, and
a quick-fire 15 from Hamza Riazuddin took his side to 228 all out, with Lewis
claiming his wicket, and Danny Briggs run out off the last ball of the innings.
It was always going to be well below par, and Smith and
Davies got off to an absolute flyer, reaching 72 off of the first 8 over
powerplay. They both looked at their fluent best, with Davies reaching his half
century first, coming off 43 balls, before the captain reached his 50 in his
first one day innings for his new club, coming up off just 36 balls.
They looked as if they would ease to the target without
losing a wicket, but Smith hammered Dawson straight to Vince on the boundary to
end his great innings, but the damage had already been done. Davies went to a
brilliant century alongside his former Worcestershire opening partner Vikram
Solanki, coming up off just 82 balls with 10 fours and 3 sixes.
There was just enough time for Davies to reach and
surpass his previous best List A score of 119, as we raced to victory with 52
balls to spare.
What a great victory that is, making the reigning
champions look distinctly average. The bowlers did brilliantly to restrict them
to a score well below par, with Ansari proving particularly effective on his
first outing of the summer. And when it comes to the batting, it couldn’t have
gone any better. Smith has finally come to the party, and looked very perky in
his 55 ball stay. Davies was just simply sensational. When he’s on form, he is
one of the most graceful batsman you could wish to see, and I hope for his and
Surrey’s sake, we see plenty more innings like that this season.
Next up we come up against Durham, Live on Sky this
Thursday, and if we perform like we did today, then another win will not be far
around the corner.
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