Nottinghamshire v Surrey: Star names set to light up Lord's
Stunning finale in store for Royal London One-Day Cup final
Thursday 29 June 2017 13:16, UK
Star names, aggressive batting, huge totals. All the signs suggest Saturday's Royal London One-Day Cup final will be spectacular, says Matt Floyd...
I don't know about you but I always felt that big domestic Finals at Lord's in September felt like they were held a bit too late in the season.
By then you'd almost forgotten what had happened in the tournament up until that point and there was the added issue that conditions were unlikely to be as good as earlier in the summer.
Live Royal London One-Day Cup Cricket
This season it feels like the Royal London One-Day Cup Final has come at the perfect time. The competition is still very much fresh in the memory, 50-over cricket has been at the forefront of the sport for the last few weeks (which helps the players) and it marks the end of the first part of the season before the start of the Test series.
The main reason to look forward to the game though is the two teams involved. Both have a rich history, plenty of star names and are playing with an aggressive intensity that their opponents have found too hot to handle. It promises to be a contest to savour.
If the pitch is flat it's hard to see how this will be anything other than a run-fest. Surrey made scores of 313 and 363 in the knockout stage while Nottinghamshire smashed 429 against Somerset then chased down 371 against Essex.
The Trent Bridge side have spread their runs more evenly throughout the batting line-up than Surrey, who've had two clear stand-outs in Kumar Sangakkara and Ben Foakes.
Not that Notts are lacking match-winners of their own. Samit Patel is in arguably the form of his life, Alex Hales and Michael Lumb can really hurt you at the top of the innings and that sensational hundred by Steven Mullaney in the semi-final highlights their batting depth.
Chasing 371 will also have done wonders for the team's belief and if they have to chase a big score again at Lord's it could get very interesting indeed.
Surrey's batting strength has been added to significantly this year by the arrival of Mark Stoneman and Scott Borthwick from Durham. It says a lot about their options that Borthwick may not even make the side on Saturday. Jason Roy still looks off his best but has found a way to score runs again and coming in behind him are two men who've looked irresistible this season.
Foakes has enhanced his England credentials in a big way this summer. The suggestion by his director of cricket Alec Stewart that he is the 'best wicket keeper in the world' has put him under the microscope and he has responded with some scintillating form, especially in the 50-over game. Heading into the final he has an average of 120.
If he continues to churn out runs and if his keeping is as good as Alec says it is (and he should be a pretty good judge!) surely further honours are not far away.
Big scores have been part and parcel of Sangakkara's game for years. In his farewell first-class season he's scored his 100th century in all formats and provided a number of batting masterclasses for the young Surrey batsmen to learn from. The sport will be a far poorer place without him so occasions like Saturday, which could quite possibly be his last on a big stage, should be treasured by all of us.
So both sides are stacked with batting yet it's often said that the best bowling sides win tournaments. Notts, without doubt, have a stellar bowling attack. James Pattinson is a potent weapon but he could be missing two key partners - Jake Ball has already been ruled out and Stuart Broad could well follow. Harry Gurney is a seasoned one-day campaigner and Luke Fletcher a pretty decent replacement but the attack certainly won't have the same fear factor if those two don't play.
Surrey, on the other hand, should have a full complement to choose from. Jade Dernbach, Sam Curran and Ravi Rampaul have 47 wickets between them and while Tom Curran hasn't been at his best in the competition he clearly has a very bright future ahead of him, as seen in his T20 performances in an England shirt.
Surrey's attack also hasn't taken as much of a battering as Notts' in recent games, who conceded an astonishing 775 runs on two flat pitches in Taunton and Chelmsford.
For those reasons, I might just have to give Surrey the slightest of edges in this county contest of heavyweight proportions. It will be their third appearance at Lord's in a row, but this could be the strongest 11 of the three to take the field.
Whatever happens on Saturday, it's all set up to be a great advertisement for county cricket and hopefully the perfect way to lead us into the Test summer.
Watch Nottinghamshire take on Surrey in the Royal London One-Day Cup Final, live on Sky Sports 2 on Saturday from 10.30am.
