Vitality Blast Preview: Surrey v Somerset

Vitality Blast Preview: Surrey v Somerset

THE MATCH

Somerset travel to the Kia Oval tomorrow (June 30th) to take on Surrey in this battle of the top two in this year’s Vitality Blast South Group.

Play is due to get underway at 6:30pm.

Somerset are currently top of the table with 20 points from 12 matches, whilst Surrey are second with 16 points from the same number of fixtures.

THIS MATCH IS SOLD OUT

HOW CAN I KEEP UP TO DATE?

You can keep up to date with a live blog via our dedicated Match Centre and also on our Twitter feed. A live stream will be available on the Match Centre, courtesy of Surrey CCC.

MATCH CENTRE

In addition to this, a report on the day’s play along with quotes will be posted on this website.

THE OPPOSITION

Surrey

Captain: Chris Jordan
Overseas players: Sunil Narine (West Indies), Sean Abbott (Australia)
Finals Day appearances: 7
Titles: 1 (2003)
2022 finish: Quarter-finals
2022 leading run-scorer: Will Jacks (449)
2022 leading wicket-taker: Chris Jordan (17)

2023 season so far
2023 leading run scorer: Laurie Evans (481 runs)
2023 leading wicket taker: Sunil Narine (16 wickets)

TEAM NEWS

Somerset are still without Lewis Gregory, Peter Siddle, Roelof van der Merwe (all hand) and Sonny Baker (back).

Ish Sodhi could make his Somerset debut whilst Lewis Goldsworthy returns to the squad having missed the last few matches with a rib injury.

Tom Abell will continue to captain the side in the absence of Lewis Gregory.

The starting XI will be picked from the following squad: Tom Abell*, Will Smeed, Tom Banton, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Tom Lammonby, Sean Dickson, Ben Green, Kasey Aldridge, Craig Overton, Lewis Goldsworthy, Ish Sodhi, Matt Henry, Josh Davey and Shoaib Bashir.

VIEW FROM THE DRESSING ROOM

Ahead of the game, Somerset Head Coach, Jason Kerr assured Members and supporters that the team wouldn’t be taking their foot off the gas despite having already secured a home quarter-final. “We’ve been playing some really good cricket and we want to take as much momentum into the quarter-final as we can,” he said. “We need to make sure that we are mentally up for the challenge. The first goal of the competition is to qualify for the knock out stages, and we’ve done that with two games to go but we will be doing everything we can to win at the Oval.

“The players have a huge sense of pride in their performances so far, and rightly so. We’ve won 10 out of 12 games, which is a phenomenal effort, and we want to make it 12 out of 14. That’s the aim and there are certainly motivations within the two last games because you want to take that momentum with you into the quarter-final. Motivation won’t be an issue for the guys especially in front of 20,000 people at a sold out Kia Oval.

“Ish Sodhi has joined us this week. He trained on Wednesday and also again today, and it’s brilliant to have another world class performer in the environment and he will get some game time before next week’s quarter-final.”