CAN­TER­BURY – A brace of wick­ets from Sunil Nar­ine helped Sur­rey to their fourth win in six match­es as they beat Kent by five wick­ets off the last ball in the T20 Blast in Eng­land on Sun­day.

Choos­ing to bat first at St Lawrence Ground, Kent post­ed 173 for five off their 20 overs, with off-spin­ner Nar­ine pick­ing up two for 28 from his four overs.

The 35-year-old, who has not fea­tured for West In­dies in any for­mat since 2019, has tak­en 10 wick­ets from six match­es in the Blast.

Jack Lean­ing top-scored with an un­beat­en 34 from 22 balls at num­ber six, punch­ing three six­es in a 53-run, un­bro­ken sixth wick­et stand with South African George Linde who fin­ished 22 not out off 11 balls, with two fours and a six.

Joe Den­ly (27) and Daniel Bell-Drum­mond (25) had ear­li­er put on 42 for the sec­ond wick­et while cap­tain Sam Billings (30) and Jor­dan Cox (23) added an­oth­er 40 for the fourth wick­et, to re­vive the in­nings from 71 for three in the ninth over.

Off-spin­ner Will Jacks, 24, led the at­tack with three for 28.

Open­er Lau­rie Evans then spear­head­ed Sur­rey’s re­ply with 52 off 36 balls be­fore Jamie Smith struck a 29-ball un­beat­en 49 to see the vis­i­tors over the line in a tense fin­ish.

Need­ing nine off the last over, Smith struck a four off the penul­ti­mate de­liv­ery of the match to lev­el the scores be­fore scram­bling a sin­gle.

All told, the 22-year-old Smith belt­ed one four and four six­es, putting on 68 with Sean Ab­bot (21 not out) in an un­bro­ken sixth wick­et part­ner­ship.

Evans had ear­li­er struck five fours and two six­es in a 76-run open­ing stand with Jacks (30) be­fore five wick­ets tum­bled for 30 runs.

Sur­rey lie sec­ond in the North Group on eight points, four be­hind un­beat­en Som­er­set.

CMC