Blast suffers another washout after 42-year-old Gareth Batty checks Sussex at Hove
ECB Reporters Network28-Aug-2020The players of Sussex and Surrey were frustrated onlookers as rain ruined a promising-looking Vitality Blast match at Hove. Surrey were looking slight favourites when play was abandoned after just 15.2 overs of play.Sussex were hoping for a total of over 200 when they had reached 82 for 1 after eight overs. But then they lost four key batsmen for 12 runs in the space of 20 balls.Surrey had chosen to bowl and the Sussex captain Luke Wright and Phil Salt got their side off to a solid start. They had a let-off in the fourth over when Wright, on 19, was caught at mid-on off the bowling of Matt Dunn. But the umpire Ian Gould ruled a no-ball because Surrey had three fielders outside the circle.Wright didn’t make the most of his reprieve because he was out in the following over, chopping a delivery from Gus Atkinson on to his stumps for 31 to make it 41 for 1 in the fifth over. But Salt responded to this disappointment by thrashing the next over, bowled by James Taylor, for 28 runs. The sequence went 4-6-6-4-4-4, with the successive maximums both clearing the cow corner boundary.But then the Sussex innings imploded. In the ninth over Harry Finch skied left-arm spinner Daniel Moriarty to Rory Burns on the leg-side boundary. Salt then hit the last delivery of the tenth over, bowled by Batty, flat to deep backward square-leg for a 22-ball 40.Sussex’s chances of posting a high score disappeared in the first three balls of the 12th over. First Delay Rawlins, backing up too much, couldn’t get back in his ground and was run out for 7 and two balls later Ravi Bopara, making his keenly anticipated debut for Sussex, miscued his pull to midwicket having scored just a single. Sussex were suddenly 95 for 5 and looking up against it.
