Northeast Captains Kent Spitfires for Surrey Royal London One-Day Cup fixture
The Kent Spitfires will face Surrey at Kia Oval, without skipper Rob Key, who dropped out late from the team that beat Somerset in a pulsating 754 run thriller last week. In his absence Sam Northeast, who scored 132 at Taunton, will once again lead the 13 man squad. Key is suffering from a hamstring strain which is unlikely to keep him out of action for very long.
Jimmy Adams has resisted the temptation to bring in a replacement for Key, sticking with the same players he has selected from in the previous two of Royal London One-Day Cup fixtures. ‘The lads have started well and there is real competition for places. We definitely can improve but hard to be too critical when you have won two from two,’ noted Adams. ‘Surrey will present a big challenge, which we will be keen to face up to.’
The two Counties haven’t played each other in a One-Day fixture since 2009. In that match, in August, at Canterbury, the Spitfires managed to secure an eight run victory, Duckworth Lewis, in what was a highly contentious affair. Due to the high winds and health and safety concerns with ECB’s temporary lights, the match was reduced to a 27 overs per side affair. Kent batting first managed to rattle up 167 for the loss of six, Sam Northeast top scoring with 69. With the lights needing to be retracted and in fading light the ‘Surrey Brown Caps’ valiantly attempted the run chase but in the end were eight runs short, when the umpires took them from the field in the 20th over.
Overall the head to head record between the two Counties is in Kent’s favour, 67 played, for 37 Kent victories, 29 Surrey and one match tied.
The match begins 2.00pm, Tuesday 5 August, at the Kia Oval, Surrey, London.
The full squad is:
· Sam Northeast (c)
· Daniel Bell-Drummond
· Sam Billings (w)
· Alex Blake
· Doug Bollinger
· Mitch Claydon
· Fabian Cowdrey
· Calum Haggett
· Ben Harmison
· Brendan Nash
· Adam Riley
· Darren Stevens
· James Tredwell
Injury Update:
Rob Key, recovering from hamstring tweak,
Mark Davies, out for the season,
David Griffiths, making good progress on hamstring injury