Cricket Notebook: Surrey Stars seal first Super League success as trio shine on Finals Day

Champions: Surrey Stars
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Will Macpherson28 August 2018

For the first time, Surrey Stars are Kia Super League champions.

They did it the hard way, having won just half of their 10 group games and qualifying for Finals Day, which took place at Hove on Monday, in third place. They turned over the two teams placed above them to win the competition, which will be scrapped for the Hundred in 2020.

If the eliminator against Western Storm was a classic won by captain Nat Sciver’s all-round brilliance (72 off 43 then two for 21, including a brilliant death over), the final was the South African show.

Lizelle Lee smashed a brilliant 104 from 58 balls (the eighth women’s T20 century of this summer, when there have never been more than three in a year before), while Marizanne Kapp and Dane van Niekerk combined for five Loughborough Lightning wickets as the Stars won by 66 runs.

All this comes at a time when women’s cricket in Surrey and at the Oval is getting more exposure than ever.

Ebony Rainford-Brent is director of cricket and this season the county employed Richard Bedbrook as its first full-time women’s coach, while there is a mural of Sciver (alongside men’s captain Rory Burns) on the back of the Oval’s old pavilion.

The rewards of such interest in the women’s game are paying off, and the players will receive their rewards, too, in the form of a healthy KSL winners’ bonus.

Elgar to strengthen Surrey title charge

Returning: Dean Elgar
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Surrey’s men are going rather well, too. Starting on Wednesday against Nottinghamshire at the Oval, they have five games left as they chase their first Championship title since 2002. Dean Elgar, their overseas player, is back for the run-in, while Tom Curran is likely to come in for his brother Sam, who is away with England, or the injured Jade Dernbach. Like Curran, Jason Roy is in line to play his first Championship game of the season.

Kumar on the comeback

India’s pace attack looked fearsome at Trent Bridge but arguably their best bowler in English conditions, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, has not played here due to a back injury. He plays for India A against South Africa A tomorrow, so do not rule out a return at the Oval.

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