Glamorgan 96 for 2 (Rudolph 34*, Lloyd 31) beat Surrey 93 (Van der Gugten 4-14) by eight wickets
Surrey are the gold standard for English professional cricket as far as Twenty20 is concerned: crowds around 20,000 at Kia Oval are the norm, they are the richest county in the country, the embodiment of off-field success. But the story on the field is not so pretty. They have reached Finals Day only once in the past decade and last night, as they crashed to defeat in their first NatWest Blast home match of the 2016 season, they were abysmal.
Championship cricket has dominated the past six weeks and this match pitted Surrey, bottom of Division One, against Glamorgan, similarly bereft in Division Two - six matches each and not a victory between them. The NatWest Blast was an opportunity for release and it was Glamorgan, unfashionable Glamorgan, who gained it by dismissing Surrey for 93 before they waltzed to a predictable eight-wicket victory with 7.4 overs to spare.
The Oval crowd took its punishment quietly. Perhaps we will know that T20 cricket in England matters when they boo on nights like this. Glamorgan, meanwhile, have travelled to south London in T20 four times and won every one, including a county record 240 for 3 a year ago.
Fortune also turned against Surrey. Ben Foakes was injured in the pre-match warm-up - struck on the elbow by a stray ball from Stuart Meaker. Then Azhar Mahmood's involvement ended prematurely when the Blast's elder statesman, at 41, propped forward to his second delivery and damaged a calf badly enough to play no further part, unable even to bat with a runner which is still allowed in English domestic cricket. A long lay-off looks likely.
Glamorgan achieved their win by just doing the basics. The surface was a little grabby, and their decision to throttle Surrey with old-fashioned virtues of back-of-a-length consistency worked a treat. Timm van der Gugten, a Netherlands pace bowler via a birthplace in Sydney, emerged with 4 for 14, his dismissal of Steve Davies and Kumar Sangakkara in the space of three balls setting the tone. He found it a bit of inswing, but when he told Sky TV "I thought we bowled well as a collective," he summed it up.
Stardom? Not on a night like this. Jason Roy was back at the Kia Oval for the first time since England reached the final of World Twenty20. No longer was he an exciting south London upstart beginning to forge an international career. Now he had recognised quality and debates were taking hold about whether he could even develop into a Test cricketer - and if so why on earth is he batting so low in the order for Surrey in Championship cricket?
But Roy 2016 vintage looked unsettled. Shots were mistimed, the pitch seemed a little grabby and his early forays were unconvincing. He was only 15 when he tried to manufacture a big shot over the off side against Michael Hogan, skewed it off the bottom of the bat to extra cover and Colin Ingram, back in Glamorgan's side after injury for the first time this season, held a difficult catch pedalling backwards.
Consolidation is not in Roy's nature. Neither is it the T20 way espoused by England which is further encouragement for him to keep playing his shots. But, in the World Cup, England had David Willey at No 11; Surrey, once Foakes had withdrawn, had Azhar at seven. Perpetual attack needs sound surfaces or batting depth, or preferably both, and Roy did not have the advantage of neither. He will undoubtedly take out his frustration on somebody soon.
Roy's dismissal was all the more damaging because it was the third Surrey wicket to fall in eight balls. Van der Gugten, had taken two wickets in the previous over, having Steve Davies caught off an attempted leg-side flip by a craftily-positioned deep square leg, and then defeating Kumar Sangakkara's advance to drive courtesy of a fast catch above his head by wicketkeeper Chris Cooke.
It was not the sort of night, as delightful as it was to see it, for Zafar Ansari to make a return from a second thumb injury that has disrupted his career: he made a second-ball nought, edging Craig Meschede's overpitched ball to the wicketkeeper. Many in the 20,000 crowd were just coming in; Surrey statisticians must have been toying with walking out, 37 for 4 after the six-over Powerplay already leaving their victory chances strikingly low.
And it got worse. Sam Curran showed pzazz for a while, but on 21 pulled Meschede to midwicket where David Lloyd took a skilful low catch and, although Curran delayed - politely enough - in the hope of a TV umpire adjudication which would have improved his chances of survival, chose to believe the evidence of their own eyes. Van der Gugten later found a little inswing to complete his foursome, bowling Gary Wilson as he shuffled across his stumps and having James Burke, Foakes' replacement, lbw third ball.
Glamorgan's chase was a non-event. Surrey did not go for broke with attacking fields, and an opening stand of 58 settled the game as Jacques Rudolph stroked it around with quality and David Lloyd struck powerfully over the leg side. Ingram announced his return from injury by battering Mathew Pillans' first ball over long on for six. It was very much Glamorgan's night.
Friday
Middlesex 195/6 (20/20 ov)
Hampshire 126 (15.1/20 ov)
Middlesex won by 69 runs
Middlesex, bottom of South Group for the last two seasons, offered hope of a revival in T20 fortunes as they launched this year's campaign with an unexpectedly comfortable victory over perennial contenders Hampshire at Uxbridge.
It was a contrasting tale of two new captains as Middlesex gained their first home win over the visitors since 2007, and their first of the season after six draws in four-day cricket. Dawid Malan, making his debut as Middlesex skipper, made light of the absence on IPL duty of Brendon McCullum and Eion Morgan with a 48-ball 93 studded with ten fours and five sixes. His counterpart Sean Ervine, leading Hampshire for the first time as James Vince is on Test duty, was out for a first ball duck.
Ervine had put Middlesex in and was relieved at restricting them to 195 for 6 given the hosts were 150 for 3 with five overs left. However, Hampshire collapsed from 55 for 1 to 77 for 7 before eventually subsiding to 126 all out with more than four overs remaining
Some batsmen become inhibited when entrusted with the responsibility of captaincy, others thrive upon it. Malan is clearly one of the latter. He hit his first ball, bowled by off-spinner Will Smith, straight down the ground for four. Remarkably he hit his next four balls, bowled by former West Indian quick Tino Best, for boundaries too. The next ball he blocked, and damaged his bat, requiring a new one.
Malan made 121 against Hampshire in red-ball cricket earlier this season and continued that form to reach his half-century off 27 balls. The skipper continued to pepper the tree-lined boundary with sixes before being dismissed off Gareth Andrew with a slash to Tino Best at fly slip.
Half-century partnerships with Adam Voges (23) and John Simpson (15) had put Middlesex on course for a substantial score but Shahid Afridi bookmarked his final over with the wickets of Ryan Higgins and Simpson. That kept Middlesex below 200 despite Best conceding 51 off four wicketless overs.
Hampshire began slowly, being 12 for 1 off 15 balls with Jimmy Adams spectacularly caught by substitute fielder Nathan Sowter. Ten balls later they were 48 for 1 with Adam Wheater cutting loose. However, he miscued to be caught for a 15-ball 30 and Toby Roland-Jones knocked out Ervine's middle stump next ball.
Afridi hit the hat-trick ball for four but was run out attempting a second. With Michael Carberry having perished to a top edge in the interim Hampshire had lost four wickets for nine runs in 12 balls. Though Liam Dawson hit 46 off 29 balls the contest was effectively over.
Hampshire have qualified for finals day for six seasons in succession while Middlesex have not escaped the group stages since winning the competition in 2008. It is early days, but this season could be different for both.
Lancashire 149/8 (20/20 ov)
Durham 151/4 (15/20 ov)
Durham won by 6 wickets (with 30 balls remaining)
A fine half-century on debut by Martin Guptill could not prevent cup-holders Lancashire Lightning slumping to their second successive defeat when they lost to Durham Jets by six wickets in Friday's NatWest T20 Blast game at Emirates Old Trafford.
Guptill made 72 off 46 balls but the New Zealand opener's efforts were rather eclipsed by his Jets counterpart Phil Mustard, whose 46 off 18 balls included five fours and three sixes and put his side on course to overhaul Lightning's plainly inadequate 149 for 8.
Graham Clark then took up where Mustard had left off and made 36 off 27 balls as the Jets romped home with five overs to spare.
Having been asked to bat first, Lancashire Lightning's innings got off to a poor start when they lost Alviro Petersen and Karl Brown to successive balls in Usman Arshad's second over.
Things got worse for the hosts two overs later when Arshad took his third wicket in ten balls, Jos Buttler skying the seamer on the off side only to see Paul Collingwood take a fine diving catch running back from point.
That left Lancashire on 46 for 3 but Guptill and Steven Croft repaired some of the damage with a stand of 60 in eight overs, Guptill reaching his half-century off 34 balls with a single off Scott Borthwick.
Guptill hit his only six when he deposited a Borthwick long hop over the rope in the 13th over and the pair brought up their fifty stand in the same over.
However, instead of marking the start of an acceleration, that six was the last boundary for half a dozen overs, during which Lightning lost four wickets, three of them in the same Barry McCarthy over.
The key wicket of Guptill had earlier been taken by McCarthy when the Kiwi opener pulled the Irish seamer to midwicket, where Borthwick dived backwards to take an outstanding catch. Guptill hit ten fours and a six in his innings but the other Lancashire batsmen managed just four more boundaries between them as Collingwood and Borthwick strangled the run-rate.
Indeed, there were no weak links in the Jets attack. McCarthy fully deserved his figures of 3 for 23 and Arshad, who had made the vital breakthroughs in the Powerplay overs, finished with three for 30.
A six from Neil Wagner helped hoist the score to 149 for 8 off their 20-over allotment but that total looked insufficient on a good pitch at Emirates Old Trafford.
The modesty of Lancashire's total and the limitations of the Lightning attack were ruthlessly exposed as Jets scored 43 runs in the first two overs of their innings, Arron Lilley conceding 23 runs off his first six deliveries and Kyle Jarvis leaking 20 off his over.
Mark Stoneman fell for ten runs in the third over but Mustard was on course to equal his county's fastest short-form fifty, which was achieved off 19 balls by John Hastings against Northamptonshire in 2014, when he skied George Edwards to Guptill at square leg.
By then, though, Durham Jets were 73 for two in six overs and the later loss of Clark and Ryan Pringle's wickets never looked likely to affect the outcome of what was a predominantly one-sided encounter.
Wagner and Edwards collected a couple of wickets apiece for Lancashire, who have now lost both their T20 games this season. Michael Richardson completed the victory and finished on 34 not out.
Derbyshire 195/7 (20/20 ov)
Northamptonshire 197/7 (19.4/20 ov)
Northamptonshire won by 3 wickets (with 2 balls remaining)
Richard Levi again provided the top-order spark for Northants as the 2013 T20 Blast winners made it two victories from two to start this summer's competition.
Wes Durston (47) and Chesney Hughes shared 74 for Derbyshire, and Tom Poynton's unbeaten 37 off 21 balls saw them post a tough target for the hosts.
Levi, however, struck four sixes in his 58 from 37 deliveries and Josh Cobb (35) and Steven Crook (33 not out) helped see them home with one ball remaining, despite Andy Carter's 3-34.
Leicestershire 174/7 (20/20 ov)
Yorkshire 120 (18.4/20 ov)
Leicestershire won by 54 runs
Ben Raine starred with the bat and ball for Leicestershire at Headingley as hit a career-best 48 before claiming a career-best 3-7 as Yorkshire crumbled.
The Vikings top-order collapsed and the hosts never looked in the match as Raine and Kevin O'Brien (3-27) doing the damage.
Niall O'Brien (39 off 21 balls) and Lewis Hill (24* off 10 balls) hit some late boundaries as The Foxes had posted a par 174-7.
Birmingham 155/7 (20/20 ov)
Worcestershire 161/5 (19.1/20 ov)
Worcestershire won by 5 wickets (with 5 balls remaining)
Brett D'Oliveira's fine 62 off 38 balls led Worcestershire to a comfortable five-wicket victory over rivals Birmingham Bears at Edgbaston.
Chasing 156 to win, the Rapids fell to 45-3, but D'Oliveira along with Alexei Kervezee (40) and Ross Whiteley (23) saw them home.
Earlier, Bears skipper Ian Bell hit 66 as the hosts made 155-8.
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