Somerset had looked in big trouble at seven for three chasing 154 but Sean Dickson (76 from 57 balls) and James Rew (62 not out from 44) shared a stand of 144 for the third wicket as Somerset powered into the final with eight balls to spare. Somerset took the first step towards retaining their Vitality Blast title by inflicting more pain on rivals Surrey as they came out of the first semi-final with a seven-wicket triumph as Edgbaston hosted its 16th T20 Finals Day.
Sean Dickson and 20-year-old James Rew, playing his first game of the campaign – and second T20 of his professional career – turned the innings on its head with the highest-ever partnership on Finals Day.
Pitch and Toss
Fast bowlers enjoy bowling at Edgbaston, Birmingham, as the wicket allows them to swing the ball. Batters who get their eyes set on have done well at this venue. The larger ground dimensions allow the spinners to do well and bowl aggressively. It isn’t the easiest of tracks to defend totals in the last few years, and few teams have done it successfully in the short format. There is always something for the bowlers early on in the game. The side winning the toss would look to bowl first in this game.
Somerset skipper Lewis Gregory won the toss and chose to field. Surrey skipper Chris Jordan batting first was happy with return of England international stars to the squad.
Lewis Gregory Somerset skipper starred with the ball to restrict Surrey to 153.
Having been put in, Surrey had collapsed from 69 for one to 114 for six before grafting out 153 for nine in their innings, Somerset skipper Lewis Gregory (three for 15) playing a superb hand with the ball as well as pulling off an excellent run-out, backed up by Josh Shaw’s three for 34 after Dom Sibley had given the innings its only real substance with 48 from 36.
Dan Lawrence departed in the second over of Surrey’s innings when he sliced Davey high in the air on the off-side. Otherwise 62 for one from six was a solid start after being put in. Sibley lifted Davey into the crowd at wide long-on for the first six of the day
A double setback in the eighth over changed the picture somewhat as Gregory struck two massive blows, the canny all-rounder bowling Pope through the gate and nipping one past Smith’s outside edge to clip off stump, removing two England players with consecutive balls. Surrey, slightly shaken, were 86 for three at halfway.
Gregory turned the screw again, running out Rory Burns with a superb throw from extra cover after a poor call by Sibley, then taking his third wicket with the ball as Sibley found the fielder at wide long-on. When Tom Curran played on to Jake Ball, Surrey were 114 for six in the 15th.
Surrey could find no momentum, Gregory conceding just three in his final over. Laurie Evans landed a couple of blows against Ball but then Chris Jordan, Evans and Jordan Clark all perished trying to clear the ropes, Shaw picking up two of those in his final over.
Asked to bat in potentially nibbly September conditions, Surrey’s initial impetus came from Lawrence, one of three England Test players back in the side (counterbalanced by Will Jacks, Sam Curran, Jamie Overton and Reece Topley being away on T20I duty). Lawrence merrily hacked and swiped – in much the manner of his final Test innings of the Sri Lanka series – to reach 19 off 11 inside the first two overs, before skying Josh Davey to cover.
Sibley had only faced one delivery at that point, and had prodded and poked to 4 off 6 before showcasing some of the improved T20 chops that have underpinned his most productive Blast season since 2017. Davey was walloped unceremoniously into the crowd over long-on, before Jake Ball’s arrival into the attack was greeted with an impudent ramp to fine leg. With Ollie Pope clipping, pulling and driving three of his first ten balls for four, Surrey were in good shape at the end of the powerplay on 62 for 1.
Gregory’s first noticeable contribution – aside from winning the toss – was to jog past one at mid-off, as Lawrence picked up his third boundary. At 32, with a long day in prospect, perhaps Gregory realised diving was not the best option; and he certainly proved he knew what he was doing when he came on to bowl the eighth over of the contest.
Gregory’s canny mediums were perfectly suited to this late-season Edgbaston deck, though there was plenty of skill involved as Pope was done by a leg cutter that toppled off stump. Jamie Smith then played around a slightly fuller one to the same effect and Surrey’s solid start and been replaced by a scorecard reading 69 for 3.
Surrey’s rebuild began with a partnership of Test match graft between the two former England opening partners, Sibley and Rory Burns. With Burns, the only left-hander in the line-up, pushed above Laurie Evans to bat at No. 5, a partnership of 36 off 28 steadied the ship for Surrey. Although they both departed in the space of eight balls, Sibley becoming a third wicket for Gregory as he picked out deep midwicket, Evans helped drag the innings up towards 150.
Evans walloped Ball flat into the Hollies Stand for the second six of the innings but, in contrast to Somerset’s chase, there were few cleanly struck attacking shots – Surrey only managed six boundaries outside the powerplay, while Somerset went on to pillage 16.
Sean Dickson- James Rew partnership of 144 seals the match for Somerset.
If 153 for nine looked meagre, it must have felt better to Surrey fans as Somerset were stung three times in the opening 13 balls, Dan Worrall pinning Tom Kohler-Cadmore in front of leg stump and having Will Smeed wafting to be caught behind, either side of a leading edge to cover by Tom Abell off Tom Curran.
But from seven for three, Sean Dickson and James Rew – in for the sidelined Banton – saw off the storm and turned 29 for three after the powerplay into 71 for three at halfway. They were behind the rate but looked to have the measure of the pitch. Although they had three players back from Test duty, England’s T20 series against Australia robbed Surrey of four players from their first-choice side in this format and their absence was felt as Somerset turned that momentum into a proper charge over the next five overs.
Sean Dickson, having already cleared the rope with a slog-sweep off Cameron Steel, picked up two more sixes off the leg-spinner, with Rew collecting maximums off Lawrence and Clark. With 30 balls remaining, they were just 26 away from a place in the final.
A couple of tight overs by Clark and Jordan will have set a few Somerset nerves twitching but they were settled as Rew, with his maiden T20 half-century in the bag, pulled Jordan for his third six and followed up by cutting him for four to bring the requirement down to three of the last two overs.
Sean Dickson skewed one in the air to be caught at deep cover but that only invited skipper Gregory to hit the winning runs, which he did by slashing Clark high over third man for six to send Somerset to the final.
It had been a stuttering batting effort from Surrey, but they had at least put a score on the board. Chasing 154 would not usually daunt a team with Somerset’s top-order prowess, though the absence of leading run-scorer Banton – injured during the Championship heist at Taunton – had reduced their firepower from the off.
They were then hobbled by Worrall’s very first ball, which swung violently from a leg-stump line to trap Tom Kohler-Cadmore plumb in front (at least this time, it was a quick kill for Kohler-Cadmore, who was pinned down by Worrall for 10 consecutive dots in the Hundred last month).
At the other end, Tom Curran had to wait until his third delivery for success, straightening one off a length to take Tom Abell’s leading edge. Worrall then removed a footwork-less Will Smeed, wafting an edge to the keeper, to leave Somerset three down in the third over and already facing a mountain to climb in defence of their title.
Somerset won two low-scorers at 2023 Finals Day, defending 142 and 145 – with Dickson the top-scorer in both games. He rose to the occasion again, steering the partnership with Rew as it grew from minor impediment to Surrey’s chances of a first T20 title since the inaugural 2003 edition, into a major roadblock.
Sean Dickson was the first to hit his stride, taking a brace of fours off Jordan Clark as Somerset reached 29 for 3 at the end of the powerplay. They were behind the rate but soon playing catch-up against Surrey’s spinners: Sean Dickson slog-swept Cameron Steel into the Hollies for the first six of the innings, then Rew launched Dan Lawrence high to the same part of the ground, just clearing the man at deep midwicket. The follow-up was lashed past extra cover for four, Surrey captain Chris Jordan left face down on the turf after diving for the catch in vain.
Sean Dickson heaved Steel for six more, just beyond the reach of the diving Sibley at deep midwicket, then punched the next ball clean over long-off on the way to a 31-ball half-century. Rew added another six when swivel-pulling Clark over deep backward square leg and the required rate dropped below a run a ball in the following over, thanks to two more boundaries off Jordan. Somerset’s stand-in wicketkeeper eventually went to fifty from 38 balls, by which point Surrey’s hopes were all but extinguished.
Presentations and Road Ahead
Surrey Loosing skipper Chris Jordan said : “We would have bowled first on that pitch as well but we got off to a pretty good start with the bat and with the wicket being a little bit tacky we felt it was a score we would have taken if you’d offered it to us at the beginning of the game.
“The way the boys started in the powerplay, to knock over three of their key players, we were in a good position but you have to give credit to Dickson especially. It would have been easy to come out and rebuild in a more conventional fashion but he took a punt and it came off. After that it was tough to stop them. In between boundaries, he was rotating the strike really well. The way they played the spin made it tough for me in particular.
“I don’t want to make any excuses because we had players missing. Any eleven that we put out as a club we would back 100 per cent and I fully trusted the players that we put out today. It has been a tough week but that’s part of cricket and we can only look forward.”
Somersets Josh 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.”
Vitality Player of the Match is Sean Dickson for his 78 from 57 said : “To be honest, him (Rew) and I don’t really say much together,” says Dickson. “We just go with the flow, keep our cool. All credit to him, he batted beautifully, too.”
The face-off between Surrey and Somerset, locked in a tussle for the County Championship and semi-final opponents at last year’s Blast Finals Day, was always likely to be compelling. Somerset went on to lift the T20 trophy in 2023 and their hopes of becoming the first team to retain the title remain alive after a magnificent stand of 144 from 98 balls between Sean Dickson and James Rew lifted them from the wreckage of 7 for 3 to set up an unlikely stroll to victory.
It was Surrey’s second humbling of the week by their main rivals for silverware, following the dramatic defeat at Taunton that loosened their grip on a third consecutive Championship pennant. A patched-up team, deprived of four first-choice players by England call-ups, looked far from fluent after being inserted, Lewis Gregory taking 3 for 15 – but they seemed firm favourites after Dan Worrall and Tom Curran combined to remove Somerset’s top three inside the first 13 balls of the chase.
But Sean Dickson and 20-year-old Rew, playing his first game of the campaign – and second T20 of his professional career – turned the innings on its head with the highest-ever partnership on Finals Day. Between them, they allowed the Somerset supporters who had made the pilgrimage to Edgbaston to enjoy the closing stages in relative comfort.
Both Sean Dickson and Rew, who was only called into the squad on Friday as a replacement for the injured Tom Banton, produced career-best T20 innings to send the defending champions through. Sean Dickson fell with three needed for 78 off 57, while Rew finished unbeaten on 62 off 44 to keep Somerset’s pursuit of an unprecedented domestic treble – having already reached the final of the One-Day Cup – on track.