Lancashire Lightning start Vitality Blast with defeat at Surrey
Report from the Kia Oval as Lancashire Lightning started their 2026 Vitality Blast campaign with defeat to Surrey by 59 runs on Friday evening.
Tom Curran and Reece Topley took the plaudits for Surrey. Curran top scored with 49 from 20 including four 6s to propel the hosts to what at one stage seemed an unlikely 213-6, Jason Roy contributing 45 (19).
Topley then dismissed Keaton Jennings and Matty Hurst before the visitors got a run on the board and while Paul Coughlin (37) and Chris Green (35) showed some defiance, Lancashire were bowled out for 154, slow left-armer Yousef Majid picking up 3-42.
Roy produced the early pyrotechnics with two sixes off Sir Jimmy Anderson. A third maximum off Coughlin was followed by three successive fours as he sprinted into the 40s, only to slap one from spinner Green straight to cover.
Ollie Pope cut his first ball for four and he and Adam Thomas both cleared the ropes as the hosts reached halfway at 105-1. Anderson though returned to have Thomas caught off a skier by Jack Blatherwick, sparking a mid-innings slump during which Surrey lost 3-9 in 15 balls.
Laurie Evans was run out by Joe Moores’ direct hit, but the Curran brothers joined forces and while Sam in his first match of the season after a groin injury was run out for 32, Tom played a magical cameo, including three huge sixes from the last six balls bowled by Green, meaning 56 came from the last three overs.
Lancashire’s chase soon hit the buffers, Topley having Keaton Jennings caught at slip from the first ball of the innings, before pinning Matty Hurst lbw three balls later to leave Lightning 0-2. Queenslander Ben McDermott’s ramped Topley over the keeper’s head for six, but Tom Curran, soon removed him caught at mid-on.
Moores too flickered briefly with successive sixes off Sean Abbott only for the bowler to have the last laugh helped by a stunning grab by Pope at short third, and when Majid held on to a stunning return catch to remove Michael Jones, Lancashire were in tatters at 49-5.
Coughlin and Green offered a glimmer of hope with an enterprising stand of 62 from 38, the former extracting some revenge for his earlier punishment ball in hand by hitting three sixes in his 37.
He eventually fell caught at mid-off, and after Green was taken at backward point, the visitors fell to an opening night defeat.
Report by ECB Reporters Network
Photos by Luke Adams and Dan Adams
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