SOMERSET were well beaten by their Surrey hosts in their opening CB40 match at the Kia Oval on Friday evening.
In a repeat of the 2011 Final at Lords after being put into bat first the home team got off to a flying start with openers Steve Davies and Rory Hamilton-Brown racing onto 140 off the first 20 overs.
The openers had taken 163 runs off a young Somerset bowling attack that was lacking Vernon Philander, resting a sore back, Steve Kirby who has a thigh injury, and Alfonso Thomas who is playing in the IPL, and which included 18 year old debutant Jamie Overton, before the partnership was broken by Pete Trego who accounted for Davies for 72.
Surrey skipper Hamilton-Brown brought up his century off 87 balls with a single off Craig Meschede in the 26th but in the same over was caught by Arul Suppiah.
At the 30 over stage Surrey had moved onto 207 for three, Jason Roy falling to Max Waller with the score on 193.
The last 10 overs of the innings saw 87 runs added, thanks to Tom Maynard who made 28 off 24 balls and former Ciderman Zander de Bruyn who hit 34 off 31 to take Surrey to 295 for six by the close of their innings.
The pick of the Somerset bowlers were Meschede who took two for 57 off his eight overs and Lewis Gregory who ended with two for 69 off his allotted spell.
The Somerset reply for off to the worst possible starts when they lost Craig Kieswetter, bowled by Stuart Meaker, off the ninth ball of the innings.
Trego was caught and bowled with the score on 28 off the last ball of the seventh over, before skipper James Hildreth and in form Nick Compton shared a partnership of 48 in just over six overs.
With the total on 76 Hildreth was stumped by Davies off Gareth Batty for 21. Compton and Jos Buttler brought up the 100 but 13 runs later the opener was caught and bowled by Zafar Ansari for 53, which came off 52 balls and included six fours.
Buttler (29) and Suppiah both fell with the score on 119.
Meschede with 20 and Gregory 25 both made valuable contributions later on but by this time Somerset were well behind the asking rate and eventually they were bowled out for 190 in 37.1 overs to give Surrey victory by 105 runs- a disappointing start to their one day campaign.
Ansari, Batty and Meaker all ended with three wickets each for Surrey.
After the game Hildreth said: “We didn't bowl well enough.We need to go away and work on our skills before the next game.”
"You need to take half-chances against teams like Surrey and tonight we let some chances slip by. It wasn't an easy night to be captain and I will go away and assess my own performance, as I am sure the other players will do.”
"We have an inexperienced bowling attack, but I have full confidence in them and they will know they can do a lot better.”
Hildreth added: "You have to learn from defeats like this and as long as we do I am sure we can make the necessary improvements."
