Foakes stars as Surrey knock out Middlesex

Surrey 105 for 5 (Foakes 45) beat Middlesex 101 for 8 (Curran 3-26) by five wicketsScorecard

Surrey held their nerve at drizzly, floodlit Lord’s to beat Middlesex by five wickets with four balls to spare in a rain-shortened match and grab the last place on offer in the Royal London Cup quarter-finals. Surrey, last year’s beaten finalists, will now face Northamptonshire in the last eight, at Northampton.

Ben Foakes and Zafar Ansari, the fifth-wicket pair, were Surrey’s batting heroes as they put on 66 in 8.5 overs to chase down Middlesex’s 101 for 8 in what became a 16 overs per side contest after coming together at 35 for 4.

Foakes eventually chipped the fourth ball of the 15th over to mid-on, with the scores level and after scoring 45 from 33 balls with two sixes and four fours, leaving Ansari to hit the winning run from the second ball of the final over by pulling Toby Roland-Jones for his first four to finish 29 not out from 28 balls.

For Middlesex, who would have earned a quarter-final themselves if they had won, it was a desperately disappointing night. If the match had been declared a no-result – which for most of a dank day seemed the likely outcome – Middlesex would have qualified instead of Surrey.

Kent’s win at Sussex and Hampshire’s narrow loss to Somerset, the South Group winners, meant that …

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