Denly ton in record stand downs Surrey
Friday 14th July 2017
Joe Denly struck a career-best 116 not out in a Kent record T20 stand with Daniel Bell-Drummond to seal an eight-wicket win against Surrey in a NatWest T20 Blast thriller at The Oval.
The pair scored 163 off the first 94 balls of the reply, chasing 206 after skipper Sam Northeast won the toss and chose to field first.
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Northeast may have regretted the move when Surrey started with a century stand of their own as Jason Roy (55) and Aaron Finch (49) spared no-one in the Spitfires attack.
New Zealander Adam Milne led the second-half Kent comeback with 2/33 and a run-out. Denly struck with his first ball of a useful 2-over spell to remove Finch, the ball after Mitch Claydon claimed the scalp of Roy on his return to the side.
The visitors paced the chase perfectly with only 47 runs from the first six overs before Denly hit the accelerator against the Surrey spinners.
The 31-year-old punched two boundaries and a six off Gareth Batty before launching Sibley into the stands three times in the 11th over.
Bell-Drummond was dropped in the deep by Jade Dernbach before the bowler made amends by removing the Kent opener for 64 and set a new Kent record T20 stand, eclipsing the 151 shared by Bell-Drummond and Northeast at Tunbridge Wells in 2016.
Sam Billings played two wonderful scoop shots for 6 and 4 off successive Sam Curran balls in a cameo of 16 off eight balls before Alex Blake joined Denly to see the chase home.
Denly reached three figures off just 54 balls and became the first Kent batsman to record two T20 hundreds for the county.
Next up is a home match against Gloucestershire at The Spitfire Ground on Tuesday (18 July) at 7pm.