2016 T20 Blast round-up: Surrey beat Essex in entertaining opener

Surrey beat Essex by eight runs in the opening Sky Live game of the 2016 NatWest T20 Blast at Chelmsford.

Azhar Mahmood blasted 42 off 22 balls on Friday night to help Surrey recover to 170-8 after Matthew Quinn had earlier taken 4-35 for the Eagles.

Those wickets included two of Surrey's big guns - Jason Roy (25 off 14 balls) and Kumar Sangakkara (32 off 16) out in the same over after firing Surrey to a strong start of 54-1 after five overs.

The visitors then slipped to 80-6 in the 11th over, before Mahmood's big-hitting and 32 off 26 from Tom Curran helped Surrey to a competitive score.

Essex got off to a terrible start in reply with Ravi Bopara falling to Sam Curran (2-23), while Mahmood (4-38) added Jesse Ryder (13) cheaply and Dan Lawrence for a duck.

Useful contributions from Tom Westley (46 off 33), Ryan ten Doeschate (36 off 32) and Ashar Zaidi (30 off 15) seemed to have swung the game in the home side's favour.

Just 17 runs were needed from the final two overs with Graham Napier (19 off 8) at the crease and striking the ball well, but Tom Curran (3-21) took his and James Foster's wicket in the penultimate over, before Mahmood bowled Essex out for 162 in with two further strikes in the last.

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Northamptonshire got the better of Leicestershire in a thrilling contest, Seekkuge Prasanna smacking a six to seal a five wicket win with one ball remaining at Grace Road.

The hosts scored 178-5 from their 20 overs with Umar Akmal cracking three fours and sixes in an unbeaten 52 from 42 balls.

But Northants, aided by some big-hitting from opener Richard Levi (61 off 29) chased down a reduced Duckworth-Lewis target of 164 in 18 overs after rain intervened.

Ben Duckett hit an unbeaten 37 off 34 balls, striking a crucial boundary with seven still needed from five balls, before Prasanna's six secured the win.

Promising 20-year-old batsman Sam Hain hit an unbeaten 92 off 54 balls for Birmingham as the Bears got the better of Nottinghamshire, chasing down 180 at Trent Bridge.

Jeetan Patel took 3-23 to help restrict the hosts after opener Riki Wessels (52 off 41) hit fifty to get them off to a strong start

But Hain's knock - containing 12 fours and two sixes - plus some handy contributions from Will Porterfield (26 off 18) and Luke Ronchi (22no off eight) helped the Bears to a six wicket win with two balls remaining.

Tom Kohler-Cadmore hit a sensational 127 off just 54 balls - featuring 14 fours and eight sixes - as Worcestershire beat Durham by 38 runs at New Road.

Opening the batting, Kohler-Cadmore almost single-handedly blasted the Rapids to 225-6, with the next highest score the 39 managed by Brett D'Oliveira.

Despite a 64 off 49 balls from Phil Mustard at the top of the order, Durham couldn't get close to the total, slipping to 187-8 - Joe Leach taking 5-33.

Kent comfortably got the better of Somerset, winning their opening match of the Blast by nine wickets in Canterbury.

Daniel Bell-Drummond smashed an unbeaten 83 off 47 balls and put on 150 for the first wicket with Joe Denly (75 off 38) as the hosts chased down Somerset's tricky 198-run target with 2.4 overs to spare.

Jim Allenby had earlier cracked 91 off 59 balls and Peter Trego 57 off 30 in a 134-run stand for the visitors, but no other Somerset batsman managed double-figures and it proved not to be enough.

Gloucestershire suffered an agonising one-run defeat to Sussex by Duckworth-Lewis at Bristol.

Despite Sussex smashing 242-5 from their 20 overs - Ross Taylor with 93 off 48 balls - the hosts were going along nicely themselves at 83-1 after 7.3 overs when the rain came.

No further play was possible meaning Michael Klinger was left stranded on 42 not out from 24 balls and Gloucestershire lost by a single run.