Surrey’s late season winning streak fell at the final hurdle as Nottinghamshire Outlaws won the Vitality Blast final by six wickets.
Notts put Surrey in and restricted them to 127 for seven, a total built on a third-wicket partnership of 90 from 52 balls between Jason Roy (66, 47 balls, seven fours, one six) and Laurie Evans (43, 23 balls, three fours two sixes).
No other Surrey batsman scored more than five against a well-drilled attack. Samit Patel (4-0-25-1) and Jake Ball (3-0-17-2) set the tone with impressive early overs and Ball returned to take the big wicket of Roy before Dan Christian finished with 4-0-23-4 to wreck Surrey’s hopes of a late charge.
Notts then lost Alex Hales to the first ball of the innings and limped to 19 for three but Ben Duckett (53 not out, 38 balls, eight fours) and Peter Trego (31, 21 balls, five fours and a six) added 63 in 33 balls to put their side in the box seat. Duckett stayed to see his side home, in the end, quite comfortably.
Surrey’s innings started unevenly as Hashim Amla and Will Jacks made just three apiece before sending up catches. Patel’s first three overs cost 14 to apply an early brake on the scoring and only when Evans, on his former home ground, and Roy were together did Surrey escape the shackles.
Roy reached his 38th T20 half-century from 36 balls while Evans bated explosively until he lifted Christian to deep-mid-wicket.
Ball returned to the attack to strike the pivotal blow with an in-ducker that trapped Roy in front. The nine balls left in the innings after that brought just eight runs for two wickets as Ben Foakes and Liam Plunkett tried and failed to clear the ropes off Christian.
At half-time, Notts looked slight favourites – less so when they dipped to four for two after nine balls. Hales slammed the first ball of the innings, from Reece Topley, to Evans at deep square leg and Joe Clarke fell to a fine catch by Jamie Overton in the same position.
When Patel holed out off Jacks, it was 19 for three and Notts needed shoring up but Duckett and Trego batted with composure and intelligence to wrest the initiative back the Outlaws’ way.
Trego missed a slog-sweep at Dan Moriarty and was adjudged lbw but departed with his team needing 46 from seven hours, a task achievable without recourse to big risks on a large field. Veteran Australian overseas Christian came in to finish the job and he joined Duckett to add an unbeaten 21 from 11 balls to his earlier four wickets.
