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Somerset Reach the Final in Style
Sean Dickson and James Rew led a remarkable Somerset comeback as the side from the West Country overcame Surrey for a second successive Finals Day and for the second time in a week.
Lewis Gregory also impressed with the ball as Somerset came out on top by six wickets.
Somerset won the toss and elected to bowl.
Surrey began in positive fashion and raced to 16 off the opening over from Craig Overton.
Josh Davey made the breakthrough with the final ball of the second over when he got one to move away from Dan Lawrence (19 from 11). With the score on 26, the Surrey opener took a big swing at it and top edged high into the Birmingham sky. When it eventually came down it landed in the waiting hands of Tom Abell.
Dom Sibley was joined by Ollie Pope and the pair too the score to 67 for one after five overs.
With runs starting to flow, Gregory brought himself into the attack in a bid to stem the flow. His plan came to fruition as he claimed two big wickets in two balls.
With two runs added to the score, the Somerset skipper bowled Pope for 19. That brought Jamie Smith, Surrey’s leading scorer in the competition, to the middle. His stay lasted just one ball as he too was skittled by an absolute beauty.
Sibley and Rory Burns began the rebuild and took Surrey to three figures in the 12th over, but Burns unwisely took on Gregory’s arm and was run out for 14 at 105 for four as James Rew removed the bails.
105 for four soon became 111 for five when Sibley finally fell for 48, picking out Sean Dickson on the boundary to give Gregory his third wicket. The Somerset Captain was convinced that he had his fourth victim when he hit Tom Curran on the pads later in the over. The umpires were unmoved and the Somerset review was unsuccessful, Curran saved by the finest of inside edges.
Curran’s reprieve was short-lived as, with one run to his name, he chopped an off cutter from Jake Ball onto his own stumps at 114 for six in the 15th over.
Josh Davey was brought back into the attack to bowl the penultimate over and struck with his first ball when Chris Jordan picked out Overton at long on. Davey then claimed his third when Laurie Evans (22) was caught by van der Merwe running in from deep cover and Surrey began the final over with the scoreboard showing 144 for eight.
Jake Ball claimed his second wicket with the second ball of the final over when Jordan Clark hit it straight to Tom Abell and Surrey finished on 153 for nine.
The Somerset reply got off to the worst possible start when Tom Kohler-Cadmore was trapped lbw by Dan Worrall off the first ball of the innings. Tom Abell (7) then got a leading edge to one from Curran and Pope took the catch at extra cover, and when Will Smeed (0) feathered Worrall behind, Somerset were seven for three in the third over.
By the end of the powerplay, Somerset were 29 for three and Surrey could sense revenge.
However, Sean Dickson, who was the hero of Finals Day last year, and James Rew had other ideas!
The 50 partnership came from 40 balls and featured a flurry of brilliantly full blooded shots. Dickson brought up a quite brilliant 50 from 31 balls and the pair brought up the Somerset hundred after 12 overs.
The 100 partnership, Somerset’s first ever at Finals Day, came from 63 balls and Rew brought up his century from 38 deliveries.
The match-winning stand was eventually worth 144, when Dickson skied the ball to Lawrence off Clark to go for a stunning 78 off 57 balls at 151 for four in the 19th over.
Rew finished unbeaten on 62 from 44 deliveries as Somerset crossed the line with eight balls to spare.
At the end of a dramatic encounter, Davey said: “What a partnership that was between Sean and James. There was definitely a few of us wondering of it might be a recurrence of what happened to us in the 2021 final but that partnership was one of the best I’ve ever seen playing under that kind of pressure on finals day, and for Rewy on his finals day debut to put in a performance like that it shows the talent that he has.
“It definitely felt like a new ball pitch. Worrall managed to swing the ball, which is one of the best assets you can have in the powerplay, but as the ball became softer it became harder to score and I thought we bowled brilliantly through the middle part of their innings to haul them back.
“When Lewis got their two England boys out it completely changed the momentum of the game and we felt happy at the halfway stage. We feel it is a pitch where if you can keep the opposition down to eight an over you are in the game.”
