Surrey v Essex Eagles
Vitality Blast
The Kia Oval
Sunday 30 August
2pm start
The Eagles travel to The Kia Oval on Sunday to take on Surrey in the Vitality Blast, having been frustrated by the weather in their opening fixture of the season at against Middlesex on Thursday.
Rain at Chelmsford a few days ago prevented a positive outcome to the match with Middlesex. The visitors had posted 184-5 and the Eagles had just started their reply when rain swept across The Cloudfm County Ground and put paid to any further action. With no result declared, both teams had to settle for a point apiece.
Pick of the Eagles attack was New Zealander Matt Quinn who returned the creditable figures of 2/24 from his allotted 4 overs, whilst big-hitting South African Cameron Delport struck 2 powerful boundaries amongst the 4 deliveries he faced to post warning of his threat.
Surrey also figured in a no result game in their first match when rain brought a premature close with Sussex 116-5 after 15.2 overs in the clash at Hove.
Quinn’s View:
Fast bowler Matt Quinn believes that the Eagles were denied 2 points by the weather on Thursday.
He said: “It’s a shame because we were pretty confident that we would have been able to chase that total down.
“It is really frustrating when you have a limited season and the weather plays a big factor, but we have a point on the board and we’ll take it.”
On the Eagles performance with the ball in general, he highlighted a couple of areas for improvement.
“We didn’t hit the wicket as hard as we could have done. It (the wicket) was quite slow and stoppy – we should have turned to cutters a bit more in the middle stages.
“But I was pleased with how I bowled. You sit down and write plans and work out the way you want things to go and often it doesn’t go to plan and you have to resort to other things. But this afternoon things seemed to go nice.
“We will take it for the first game and hopefully I can carry on and take some more wickets for the Eagles.”
Squad News:
The Eagles have no injury worries ahead of Sunday’s match and have named a 14-man squad.
The Opposition:
Surrey’s squad has been decimated by England calls and injuries with 14 players unavailable for various reasons. Those include Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Jason Roy & Reece Topley are all involved in England’s forthcoming fixtures while Ollie Pope has been ruled out for up to 4 months with a dislocated left shoulder.
The 22-year-old suffered the injury when fielding during the fourth day of the England and Pakistan third Test match and will have surgery in the next few weeks.
Vitality Blast skipper and fast bowler Jade Dernbach is currently sidelined with a groin problem, seamers Jordan Clark (foot and ankle), Rikki Clarke (hip), Nick Kimber (knee), Morne Morkel (ankle) and Liam Plunkett (hamstring) are also ruled out while Conor McKerr’s season was ended by knee surgery earlier this month.
Surrey Squad:
Gareth Batty (C), Gus Atkinson, Scott Borthwick, Rory Burns, Matt Dunn, Laurie Evans, Ben Foakes (WK), Will Jacks, Daniel Moriarty, Ryan Patel, Jamie Smith, Mark Stoneman, James Taylor, Amar Virdi.
Record Between The Sides:
The first match that the Eagles contested in T20 cricket came against Surrey in 2003, when the teams met at Imber Court. Of the 22 players involved on that day only Ryan ten Doeschate, who was making his debut, is still playing. Now 40, he returned 2/27 from 4 overs and then, batting at number 10, scored 6 as the Eagles went down to a 44 runs defeat.
The teams have met on 28 occasions in T20 cricket of which Essex have won 17 contests and Surrey 10, whilst the weather forced a no result once.
No Eagles fan will forget the impression that Cameron Delport made when the Eagles entertained Surrey at Chelmsford last year. Rain reduced the match to a 15 overs per side affair but the swashbuckling South African, playing only his second match in the Eagles colours, peppered the boundaries in amazing onslaught as he struck 129 from 49 balls.
On his way, he set the fastest century of the season taking just 38 balls to reach three figures and by the time he was dismissed in the final over of the innings, he had thumped 14 sixes and 7 fours.
