Bell-Drummond has a blast

Daniel Bell-Drummond claimed his match-winning T20 century against Surrey last Friday 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.”

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 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 BellDrummond 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 (52) gave Surrey a flying start as the visitors ended their powerplay overs on 69-2.

Kent’s sixth win in the South Group kept their hopes of a return to the quarter-finals alive with two games remaining.

‘To play like that after three weeks out was amazing’