Kentish Express Ashford & District
Ton-up Daniel has a blast
Daniel Bell-Drummond claimed his match-winning T20 century against Surrey had been ‘beyond his wildest dreams.’
Bell-Drummond returned to the Kent side to smash a superb unbeaten ton to guide the Spitfires to an eight-wicket win to keep their NatWest T20 Blast quarter-final hopes alive.
He said: “To play like that after three weeks out through injury was amazing – it was beyond my wildest dreams.
“I started the week seeing a specialist about my thumb injury and ended it scoring my maiden T20 hundred.
“I’m feeling a lot fresher than the rest of the lads because they’ve been toiling in the dirt while I’ve been trying to shake off this injury.”
After the visitors were restricted to 180-8 in the sold-out opening game of the Tunbridge Wells Festival, the opener put on a Kent T20 record 151 for the second wicket with skipper Sam Northeast after Joe Denly had gone for a first-ball duck in the opening over.
Northeast hit 57 from 39 balls, including four fours and two sixes but it was England Lions man Bell-Drummond who ran riot at The Nevill, hitting 14 fours and clearing the ropes once in his 65-ball stay which saw Kent reach the final over needing just three runs for victory.
The 22-year-old became the fifth Kent man to record a T20 ton – following Azhar Mahmood, Denly, Northeast and Andrew Symonds – after taking just 58 balls to reach three-figures earning a standing ovation from the 5,000 crowd.
T20 records beaten included Rob Key and Martin van Jaarsveld’s seven-year-old second-wicket best for Kent against Surrey of 92 and the 135 by Denly and Mahmood for the second wicket against any county set in 2011.
The stand beat the previous best for any wicket, set by BellDrummond and Denly against Somerset in May, by one run when Northeast edged Ansari behind, leaving Sam Billings (eight not out) to join Bell- Drummond to see the hosts home with two balls to spare.
James Tredwell had earlier claimed 3-32 from four overs to help limit the damage after Jason Roy gave Surrey a flying start. Roy hit an early boundary off Darren Stevens then a hat-trick of sixes off the first over of the night by Kagiso Rabada.
Roy raced to a 28-ball 50 with five fours and four maximums but miscued the next ball from Stevens to Rabada at mid-off.
Starved of the strike, Aaron Finch (7) made a desperate attempt to clear the ropes against David Griffiths only to pick out Rabada at deep midwicket as Surrey ended their powerplay overs on 69-2.
Tredwell came on at the Pavilion End and saw his first delivery go out of the park but he soon turned the innings.
The spinner held one back to deceive and bowl Tom Curran (12) then Steven Davies (23) yorked himself when trying to advance down the pitch to make it 108-4.
Lured by the short, straight boundary, Dominic Sibley (14) also marched down the pitch heaving at Tredwell only to be stumped by Sam Billings.
Having conceded 21 off his opening over, Rabada returned to york Rory Burns (10) and concede only 10 runs off his final three overs.
With Surrey’s run rate plummeting, Chris Morris (25) called for a second run to deep mid-wicket and was run out by Adam Ball’s throw then, in the final over, Sam Curran (19) was bowled by Mitch Claydon as Surrey fell well short of their anticipated total.
Bell-Drummond added: “Jason Roy got them off to a brilliant start and Davies and the Currans carried it on but we did well to pull it back through James Tredwell and then Sam and I almost saw it home.”
Kent’s sixth win in South Group kept their hopes of a return to the quarter-final alive with two games remaining.
‘It was beyond my wildest dreams’