The Middlesex Crusaders got their own back for four years of Twenty20 Cup defeats by cruising to an eight-wicket victory at Lord’s with 14 balls to spare.

Surrey got off to a flying start after an early shower meant that the match had been reduced to 19 overs per side. Ali Brown and James Benning smeared and clipped the ball to the boundary, utilising the first five field restricted overs.

Brown finally went, caught at mid on, having got his side up to 33 with a quick 19 from just 12 balls. Benning continued on the good work of his opening partner and reached 31, whilst Ramprakash was slightly reserved.

However batting seemed to become difficult as a short bout of rain livened up the pitch. As Middlesex squeezed, Surrey’s scoring rate dropped and continued to do so as they lost four wickets for just 19 runs.

Rikki Clarke and Azhar Mahmood were just beginning to rebuild when another heavy bout of rain brought the Brown Cap’s innings to a premature close.

The Duckworth Lewis rule was enforced which meant that Surrey’s 85 for five from 13.3 overs was reduced to a target of 73 from ten overs.

Surrey got off to a great start as Matthew Nicholson dismissed Ed Smith for a first ball duck, however in the following over Ed Joyce took to some loose bowling from Jade Dernbach. From there the Crusaders never looked back and even when Benning took a fantastic catch in the deep to get rid of Joyce, his replacement Jamie Dalrymple pushed hard between the wickets whilst also scoring the odd boundary.

He eventually took the Crusaders to their first victory over Surrey in the Twenty20, by clipping Clarke through the leg side for four.

Surrey are however still leading the table on eight points, with two more matches to play against Sussex on Thursday and Kent on Friday, both at the Brit Oval.

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