Ryan Patel’s brilliant 131 sinks Nottinghamshire at Surrey in Royal London Cup

Ryan Patel hit 131 of just 70 balls as Surrey beat Notts. (Photo by Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images for Surrey CCC)Ryan Patel hit 131 of just 70 balls as Surrey beat Notts. (Photo by Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images for Surrey CCC)
Ryan Patel hit 131 of just 70 balls as Surrey beat Notts. (Photo by Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images for Surrey CCC)
Ryan Patel’s astonishing 70-ball 131 gave a 3,000-strong Guildford crowd helped Surrey beat Nottinghamshire by 33 runs (DLS) in a heavy-scoring Royal London Cup game that had earlier looked to be falling foul of heavy rain.

Jamie Smith also hit a 16-ball fifty as Notts endured a torrid time in the field.

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In a contest reduced to 30 overs per side, Surrey smashed 23 sixes and 12 fours in their 311 for 8 – a remarkable total considering they were 29/1 off eight overs when bad weather halted play for three hours.

After the restart, Surrey took full advantage of Woodbridge Road’s short boundaries to hammer 282 in the remaining 22 overs.

In reply, needing 300 – bewilderingly, fewer than Surrey under the Duckworth Lewis Stern system – Notts made a spirited 266 for 7.

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Sol Budinger’s 21-ball 45 up front promised a strong chase, particularly when the left-hander took 30 from Gus Atkinson’s second over when two no balls helped him to plunder five fours and a six.

Ben Slater’s 69 off 48 balls also threatened but Peter Trego and Haseeb Hameed fell cheaply and Matt Dunn’s double-wicket maiden left Notts 151 for five after 17 overs and falling too far behind the asking rate.

Slater said: “We are disappointed to lose and, as the eventual margin suggested, we did feel we were chasing probably 20 or 30 too many runs.

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“On a small ground, where it is hard to defend a total, we would have probably been able to chase down something 20 or 30 runs less than the 300 we were set.”

Patel’s career-best white-ball score came in just the 23-year-old’s fifth List A appearance, with he and opener Mark Stoneman ripping into the Notts bowling in a second-wicket stand eventually worth 152 in 16 overs.

The real carnage effectively began when Patel hit Montgomery’s off spin for six from the last ball of the 14th over.

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That stroke kick-started a memorable assault in which there were three successive Patel sixes in Montgomery’s next over, the 16th, a six each for Patel and Stoneman in a Trego over costing 19 and then another three sixes in a row from Patel against Evison’s medium pace.

Those blows, in the 21st over, took Patel to 99 and the left-hander completed a 59-ball hundred from the next delivery and added one final six off left-arm spinner Patterson-White before holing out to deep mid wicket one ball later.

Stoneman was hit on the boot to be leg-before to Brett Hutton for a 48-ball 43, and Tim David fell for 13, skying a catch after swinging Dane Paterson for a powerful six that brought up Surrey’s 200 earlier in that 24th over.

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After Patel’s dismissal, though, Smith merely stamped harder on the accelerator just when it seemed as if Surrey’s scoring rate simply could not go higher.

There were sixes over long off and long on against Luke Fletcher, three in succession off Patterson-White and a final straight six, his sixth, off Paterson in a 19-ball 54.

Rikki Clarke and Atkinson, too, both hit two sixes in the last couple of overs as Notts finished punch-drunk and spectators knew they had witnessed something special. ​​​​​​​