Match Details
2.50 AM IST| Hope you have enjoyed our live coverage of the T20 Vitality Blast between Kent and Somerset from the St Lawrence Ground Canterbury, in Kent. This is Tugral Azmi signing off along with my fellow commentators AkshayaKrishna Polya and Ajay Ahire along with our scorer Raju Khariya. Join us tomorrow for another exciting match sharp at 11.00 PM IST until then it's goodnight and goodbye.
2.30 AM IST! Tugral: Somerset won the toss and decided to bowl and this decision
appeared to be going in their favor. Somerset beat last season's winner by 8 wickets and 5 balls. When the Somerset openers came down to chase
the target of 160 runs, both the openers started slow and Matt caught Tom
Banton at square leg on his length delivery score of 9 runs. Somerset got the
first blow for just 19 runs. Rilee Rossouw came to support Will Smeed, both of
them played good shots but the partnership could not last long. Another blow to
Somerset came in the form of Will when the team’s score was 45 and both the openers
returned to the pavilion.
After Smeed was dismissed, team skipper Abell joined Rossouw
in the middle. When both of them handled Somerset’s innings, Somerset needed
116 runs to win from 78 balls. Both the batters respected the good balls and
did not delay in sending the bad ball outside the boundary. Rossouw played an
unbeaten 81* in which he hit six fours and two sixes. From the other end, the
Somerset Captain supported Rossouw and played an unbeaten knock of 48* runs to
give his team a fine match win. Rossouw and Abell put on a 121-run partnership for the third wicket and turned the match in Somerset's favor. Fred Klassen and Matt Milnes were the picks of the bowler as both of them picked up one wicket each.
Kent did not have a good start when they came out to bat on the score of just 33 runs Kent's top and middle-order batters had returned to the pavilion. Leaning did the job of saving Kent's sinking innings, he took some time to settle down in the middle, after that he washed all the bowlers of Somerset and he played an unbeaten knock of 72* in which he hit 2 fours and 5 sixes. From the other end, Leaning was supported by Cox, who could not run the innings for long but made an important partnership of 52 runs. Then Jack Leaning and George Linde gave some stability to the Kent innings and scored some valuable runs for the team. Jack Leaning notched up his fifty in the first match of the campaign. George Linde scored a quickfire 29 runs from 15 balls. Grant Stewart struck a couple of fours in the end as he scored quick 14 runs from 8 balls. Leaning smoked a huge six in the last over to take his team past the 160 mark and he remained unbeaten on the score of 72. Lewis Gregory was the pick of the bowler as he picked up 3 wickets in his 4 over spell.