Surrey vs Kent Vitality Blast Preview. Top vs Bottom as Surrey look to book a home quarter-final tie

Both sides go into their penultimate Blast match in contrasting positions in the South Group with Surrey facing Kent at the Kia Oval.

Last seasons winners of the Blast Kent find themselves at the bottom of the table, with Surrey sitting at the top of the pile with a three-point gap over second placed Somerset and having booked their place in the forthcoming quarter-finals.

Surrey go in to tonight’s encounter with Kent on the back of successive defeats against Sussex and Essex, both away from the Kia Oval.

The leaders have named a 16-man squad for this evenings meeting with Kent, with Jamie Overton back in the squad after being released from England. New overseas signing Aaron Hardie is also named in the squad.

Darren Stevens is included in the Kent squad for the first time in this seasons Vitality Blast campaign after recovering from a shoulder injury.

With Sam Billings keeping wicket for England in their current test against India, Jack Leaning will captain the Spitfires, with Jordan Cox in line to keep wicket.

The visitors will head across the water in a good frame of mind after defeating Sussex Sharks at The Spitfire Ground in their last T20 outing.

Joe Denly hit a half century with Kent coasting home by six wickets with seven balls to spare.

Denly has now hit 416 runs in the tournament from 11 innings in this season’s tournament, including a century against Middlesex earlier in the campaign.

In the bowling department, Grant Stewart is the leading wicket taker with 13 wickets closely followed by Fred Klaassen with 12 victims.

Kent’s spinners have also picked up their share of wickets so far with Qais Ahmad and George Linde(11) all bowling with an economy rate of under 8.00.

For Surrey, all rounder Will jacks leads the way for the home side with 422 runs, including 42 fours and 18 sixes.

Captain Chris Jordan is the hosts leading wicket taker in this season’s tournament, picking up 14 wickets with Sunil Narine contributing with both bat and ball- 12 wickets and 199 runs thus far.

Both Reece Topley and Sam Curran are also in to double figures in the wickets department with Topley’s best figures this season of 4-37 and Curran 5-30.

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