Essex Eagles v Surrey
Vitality Blast
Sunday 05 August
The Cloudfm County Ground, Chelmsford
Essex Eagles Team | Chopra, Wheater (wk), Walter, ten Doeschate (c), Bopara, Pepper, Zaidi, Harmer, Siddle, Zampa, Quinn.
Surrey Team | Finch, Roy, Maddinson, Foakes (wk), Clarke, Pope, Curran, Jacks, Morkel, Batty, Dernbach (c).
Toss | Surrey, who elected to field.
Umpires | Steve O’Shaughnessy & Russell Warren
Result | Surrey win by 6 wickets.
Match Report | Essex Eagles were left rooted to the bottom of the table as they were beaten by six wickets when they met Surrey in their Vitality Blast battle at The Clooudfm County Ground.
Once again the Eagles failed to make a telling impact with the bat as they were restricted to 157 for five, a total the visitors passed with 21 balls to spare.
Having been put into bat, only Varun Chopra with 52 from 39 balls played with any authority in the top order. His innings contained five 4’s and one 6 before he put up a simple catch to Jonathan Batty off Rikki Clarke.
Michael Pepper made 26 not out from 22 deliveries but there was little substance until a swashbuckling contribution from Ashar Zaidi raised the tempo and the total.
The Eagles were on a sorry looking 124 for 5 with two overs to face but Pepper and Zaidi collected ten off the penultimate over before Zaidi went into overdrive as 23 runs were taken from the final over sent down by Tom Curran.
That effort carried Essex beyond 150. Zaidi’s all too brief visit to the middle brought the all-rounder an unbeaten 24 arrived from only eight deliveries with the help of two 4’s and two 6’s.
Essex got off to an encouraging start in defence of their modest total as Zaidi and Peter Siddle got rid of powerhouse openers Jason Roy and Aaron Finch with only 26 on the board.
Without facing a legitimate delivery, Roy was stumped by Adam Wheater off a wide sent down by Zaidi in the first over whilst Finch departed for 16, the victim of a brilliant diving catch by Pepper at deep mid-wicket.
That left Nic Maddinson to act as the backbone for the successful victory quest. The Australian and former Essex Eagles player Ben Foakes added 35 in three overs for the third wicket before Foakes (26) was another victim of a stumping off a wide, this time facing Adam Zampa.
Ollie Pope, having been selected earlier in the day for the England Second Test squad at Lord’s this week contributed 24 from 13 balls before he fell to Zaidi to leave the visitors 95 for 4 in the 11th over.
However, that was to be the last success for the Eagles attack as Rikki Clarke joined Maddinson to plunder 64 from 6.1 overs to see Surrey to victory. Their last 33 runs came from just nine balls.
Maddison ended unbeaten on 49 from 41 deliveries while Clarke saw his side past the winning post with two successive sixes of Zampa on his way to 37 from 19 deliveries. In all he struck 4 sixes and one four. Zaidi ended with 2 for 27 from his 4 overs including 11 dot balls.
This was the Eagles third successive defeat in the competition and they have failed to record a victory in their last seven matches. Their only success this season was against Middlesex and this latest setback ended any lingering hopes they may have entertained of making progress in the competition.
They will be hoping to at least end their barren run when they travel to Cardiff to face Glamorgan on Tuesday. Meanwhile Surrey’s success leaves them very much on course for a place in the knock-out stages.
