Late late drama as Curran keeps final over nerve – twice!
YOUNG seamer Tom Curran was the hero in successive final ball victories for Surrey in an opening week that saw no shortage of late thrills and dramatic climaxes in the T20 Blast.
The 22-year-old bowled the final over against ESSEX on Friday as SURREY earned a narrow two-run victory thanks to the dismissals of Ravi Bopara (75) and Ashar Zaidi (18).
Curran repeated the trick against SOMERSET with the England international allowing just two runs from the final three balls after Corey Anderson (81) was run out by Aaron Finch – who scored half-centuries in both games.
Stand-in skipper Jade Dernbach was delighted to see the progress of Curran, who made his England T20I debut against South Africa in June.
“I’m so proud of him and happy to see him performing like this in big pressure situations,” said Dernbach, who was leading in the absence of an injured Gareth Batty.
“It was crucial to get Corey Anderson out in that final over, because he had played unbelievably well, and then Tom Curran held his nerve again at the death, as he did in that Essex match.”
The tournament opened with a remarkable tie between GLOUCESTERSHIRE and MIDDLESEX as Benny Howell dismissed Nathan Sowter with the final ball at Cheltenham.
Gloucestershire had set 182-5 with Cameron Bancroft’s 51 off 31 the highlight and at 119-8 in reply Middlesex had their backs to the wall.
But an unbeaten 68 from 28 balls from Ryan Higgins got the visitors into a winning position and, in the end, Gloucestershire’s David Payne was relieved to earn a draw.
He said: “You never know at the end of the competition, that one point might be the difference.
“We’ve got two more games at Cheltenham and we’ve learned a lot from this and we can only improve really.
“It was a crazy game and my emotions were all over the place. That’s T20 cricket, you get a couple of overs wrong and they can get themselves right back into the game and that’s what they did.”
Elsewhere GLAMORGAN bounced back from their 22-run defeat to HAMPSHIRE with an 18-run win over SUSSEX.
Colin Ingram hit a 46-ball century – the county’s fastest ever in T20 cricket – with Luke Wright’s own 101 from 53 balls not enough for the Sharks.
And Daniel Bell-Drummond got his Blast off to the perfect start with 90 not out from 55 balls to guide KENT to a seven-wicket win over ESSEX.