The Blaze beaten as Surrey qualify for next stage

They pulled it off despite a bizarre start to The Blaze’s pursuit of their 133-run target in which Alice Monaghan had to be removed from the Surrey attack for bowling two full tosses above waist height and 27 were conceded in the opening two overs.

Yet a brilliant comeback by Surrey’s slower bowlers meant that The Blaze - the only side to beat Surrey after winning at the Kia Oval earlier in the season - fell short despite Kathryn Bryce’s unbeaten 53 (55 balls), with Ryana MacDonald-Gay taking two for 14 and Kalea Moore two for 17.

The Blaze captain Kirstie Gordon said: “It was probably one of our worst performances of the season. I don’t think it was all lost in the batting. We fielded poorly at times and let them get 10 or 15 runs too many on a tricky surface, so that was quite costly.

“It was a slow, tacky pitch but we probably made it look a bit worse than it was. With the summer we are having I do think we are going to see moe pitches like it, too, so we are going to have to get better at playing on them and working out what our best options are.

“Credit to Surrey, they bowled and fielded really well and set really good fields, but I think we just didn’t have enough intent with the bat. On a slow pitch it is really important that you stay ahead of the game, keep showing intent. I don’t know the numbers but it seemed like there were way too many dot balls. When boundaries are hard to come by, you have to be running your ones and twos and that’s something they did better than us.

“The good thing is that we still have three more matches, we are in a really good position and there is a lot of confidence in the squad. If we can learn from what we did wrong today it will stand us in really good stead at the business end of the competition.”