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Lions win at packed Oval

A sell-out record crowd of 20,041 at The Oval, the highest for 50 years, saw the Surrey Lions victorious by 23 runs in a rain-interrupted Twenty20 match against Kent.

A sell-out record crowd of 20,041 at The Oval, the highest for 50 years, saw the Surrey Lions victorious by 23 runs in a rain-interrupted Twenty20 match against Kent.

The Spitfires, chasing 168, struggled after a fine opening stand of 47 between Matthew Walker (21) and Andrew Hall (39).

Walker was the first of four victims of left-arm spinner Nyan Doshi who later claimed the wickets of Robert Key (7), Darren Stevens (15) and Martin Van Jaarsveld (12) having conceded 27 from his three overs.

Kent had lost four wickets for 37 with Doshi's excellent spell after Michael Carberry (23) had been caught at wide midwicket off James Benning and Hall had fallen to the first ball from Harbhajan Singh in the ninth over.

Tim Murtagh's second spell gave him the last two wickets to fall. He bowled Justin Kemp in the 13th over and in the last over had James Tredwell caught for 10 at deep midwicket.

Kent could only manage to reach 144 for eight which took them to their sixth defeat in as many matches.

Having decided to bat first, the Lions got off to a good start, taking 21 from the first two overs and 24 from the next two.

Alistair Brown began aggressively, hitting a six off the third ball of the innings, a top-edge over third man off Martin Saggers.

He square cut Hall in the second over for four and then pulled him for six.

His next boundary came in the following over off Saggers whom he pulled for four to race to 25.

Brown added one more boundary before being bowled by Saggers for 29 and all but one of those runs had come from boundaries.

A boundary each to Benning and Jonathan Batty took the total to 45 for one when rain stopped play after four overs.

They resumed 45 minutes later with the overs being reduced to 15-a-side and the break between innings was cut to 10 minutes.

The first ball on resumption was clipped for four by Batty and the 50 of the innings came two balls later.

A double bowling change was made for the sixth and the seventh overs with Simon Cook replacing Hall and Kemp came on in place of Saggers.

Cook, in his first over had Batty (17) caught on the square leg boundary and Surrey were 59 for two.

Azar Mahmood clipped the first ball he faced off Kemp and the same shot brought him his second boundary off Cook. But Kemp soon claimed a wicket, hitting Benning's middle stump.

Ricki Clarke's short knock contained a four and a six before he spliced Cook to be held at mid-off and the Lions had lost the fourth wicket on 86.

Mahmood's hit for six over off Tredwell took him to 23 before the bowler got his revenge with the next ball, having him caught by Kemp at midwicket in the 11th over.

Man of the match Scott Newman (52 not out) picked up runs quickly.

His successive sixes off Cook took him to 39 and he followed that with a four to cover in the same over.

He reached his half-century from just 25 balls and his unbroken seventh-wicket stand of 38 with Murtagh (11) finally took the Lions to 167 for six.

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