Report & Reaction: Hampshire Hawks Men v Surrey, Vitality Blast

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Dom Sibley continued Surrey’s dominance at Utilita Bowl in the Men’s Vitality Blast with a crushing 70 against Hampshire Hawks.

Former England Test opener Sibley’s breezy 46-ball knock provided the backbone for his side’s commanding victory on the south coast – Surrey’s sixth straight T20 win on the ground.

Opening partner Will Jacks and Sam Curran whacked quick-fire 41 and 38s to back Sibley up as Surrey reached 193.

Despite short explosive cameos from South African duo Dewald Brevis and Lhuan-dre Pretorius, two wickets apiece for the returning Reece Topley, Chris Jordan and Mitchell Santner, and three for 18 for Nathan Smith, gave the visitors a one-sided 71-run win.

Having been put into bat, Jacks and Sibley seemed to amass runs without massive swings of the bat, with Sibley’s two sixes over midwicket anomalies in a 59-run powerplay.

Jacks’ sweet timing had brought him 41 in a blink-of-an-eye 24 balls but Benny Howell’s introduction began a squeeze.

Howell and Liam Dawson stopped the flow of runs with their off-pace deliveries, with Howell getting Jacks slapping to point and Jason Roy run out via a one-motion diving run out by James Vince.

Sibley continued to turn over the strike, along with the odd boundary, as he found a tempo and stuck to it, reaching his ninth T20 fifty in 32 balls.

He eventually fell for an impressive 70, but that only began the Surrey fireworks – with 51 runs coming from the last four overs.

Sam Curran baseball-swatted Chris Wood and then swivelled James Fuller for sixes, and when he was out his brother Tom fired an outrageous six over extra cover.

In the second half of the innings, Surrey only allowed 10 dot balls, with power-hitting interspersing smart running.

Pretorius almost monopolised the strike in the first three and a half overs, but when he hit the ball, it stayed hit. His third ball wristy flick off his pads, cleared the ropes with ease, before one of three fours cannoned off the non-strikers’ stumps and into the padding in next to no time.

But Jacks stopped him in his tracks, when a reverse sweep went wrong, before Vince – who had only eight balls in 4.5 overs – spliced to mid on.

Toby Albert was caught behind by a tumbling Laurie Evans, but Dewald Breis blew some life back into the innings with a six straight into a cameraman and then an audacious back-foot hammer for another maximum.

But scoreboard pressure saw more and more desperate rash shots, and each seemed to be paired with a catch.

Brevis, Joe Weatherley, James Fuller, Liam Dawson, Benny Howell, and John Turner all took to the sky, while Chris Wood was castled.