Surrey vs Kent - The Oval, London - Wednesday 24th June 2009

A sunny Wednesday afternoon, and an excellent opportunity to bunk off work a bit early, and head to The Oval for a Twenty20 game. The T20 World Cup just having finished, everybody had been impressed by the quality of the 2 week tournament - so an excellent time to resume the domestic tournament. Kent had been having a decent season so far, despite being robbed by floodlight failure in Sussex in a recent T20 game. Surrey on the other hand were doing terribly in their T20 group - with little to nothing to play for by this stage.

After getting into The Oval, sadly it was my turn to get a beer. With a sellout crowd (including lots of people there on corporate jollies - times must be tough if the Lords test matches have been abandoned for £12 T20 games), you would have thought that Surrey might have opened a couple of bars. Unfortunately not, so I spent half of the Kent innings waiting to pick up a few drinks. Surrey don't seem to employ the brightest people in their food and drink outlets, which I suspect was the cause of the lengthy wait. Poor - they like the money people spend, but aren't willing to employ enough staff to give those people a decent experience.

I arrived in my seat just in time to see Martin van Jaarsveld reach his half century, then get dismissed shortly afterwards, with Darren Stevens and Rob Key following him back to the pavilion soon afterwards. After a couple of slow patches, followed by a decent bout of scoring, Kent got to a total of 168, from which you really thought the game could go either way - you could see Kent defending that, but you could also see Surrey making it.

Surrey's run chase did not start well, they lost Newman and Ramprakash very early on, and things were looking great for Kent. But then, a decent stand including Afzaal getting a half century, got them right back into the game. Like any good Twenty 20 game, it swung both ways right until the end, and at the end of the 19th over, Surrey needed 14 to win, and Kent looked to be in a decent position.

At that point, the umpires intervened - giving Kent a 6 run penalty for a slow over rate, and reducing the requirement to 8 from the final over - very achievable. I must confess I don't quite understand how the time allowed to bowl your overs can be just a flat 75 minutes - if you take 9 wickets, that is a very different ask, compared to taking none. Anyway, 8 runs needed from the final over - which made it all the more incredible that Surrey failed to do it, especially as they got themselves to needing 3 runs from the last 4 balls. An excellent Kent run out cost Surrey their final wicket, and won Kent the game - a fantastic finish, and a great T20 game all in all.