The Cricketer looks at the main talking points from the T20 Blast clash between Surrey and Sussex at the Kia Oval
Only ten players have scored more Big Bash runs than Daniel Hughes, so it ought not to have surprised anyone when he pitched up and started lighting up the T20 Blast.
Surrey came into this game on the back of a resounding thrashing of Somerset, with a bowling attack that bowled out last year's champions for 106. But on the same pitch, five days later, they found a different challenge altogether in Hughes, a classy left-hander, whose 65 – to shepherd Sussex from the awkwardness of 68 for 4 – formed the basis of an excellent effort from the visitors, who lost the toss and were invited to bat, as they'd hoped to do in any case.
This is just Hughes' third outing in county cricket, after 37 against Gloucestershire and 10 more recently against Glamorgan. He has essentially been signed to replace Cheteshwar Pujara for the remainder of the season, which is quite a task for anyone. But he has started about as well as could have been asked.
On a night of runs, the shot of the evening came during Tom Alsop's enterprising cameo. He smashed 65 off 38, complete with three towering sixes and eight boundaries.
Gus Atkinson in particular came in for plenty of punishment; his three overs cost 48 runs in all, beginning with five wides off his first ball that flew and beat Jamie Smith for pace down the legside as it swung once it had passed the bat.
But it was off Sean Abbott that Alsop played his most eye-catching stroke, reverse-sweeping the Australian as he dug in a leg-stump yorker, somehow helped past backward point for four.
Daniel Hughes is the eleventh-highest run-scorer in Big Bash history (Morgan Hancock/Getty Images)
There's something incongruous about Ollie Robinson in coloured clothing. He is such a fine red-ball bowler, such a red-ball bowler, full stop. This was his 52nd T20 appearance in a decade.
He hadn't played a T20 game since 2021 before the start of this year's Blast, but Paul Farbrace made clear to The Cricketer after Sussex's County Championship draw with Middlesex at the end of May that the England Test seamer was part of his T20 plans.
There was a brief cameo with the bat from Robinson, playing against Test vice-captain Ollie Pope, before taking the new white ball in what Somerset might call the Craig Overton role, hitting traditional red-ball areas. He promptly bowled Laurie Evans with a beauty.
Robinson was far from the only England Test player on show in south London. Ollie Pope took Archie Lenham for consecutive, massive sixes en route to a superb - albeit farcical - 99*.
Pope left the field thinking he'd made his first T20 century, as confirmed by the scoreboard. But that changed back to 99 shortly after the conclusion, with Pope only finding out once he'd returned to the changing room.
"It was a bit frustrating because 99 was showing on the scoreboard and I took the single for the hundred," he said. "It's not the end of the world. You're never going to celebrate a hundred after a loss but we were in the changing room and Laurie Evans came up to me, shook my hand and said 'Well done on your 99!'"
His highest T20 score coming into Friday night was just 62, but – standing in for Chris Jordan as captain – he played outstandingly well, while Jamie Smith – one of several touted for a Test wicketkeeping berth – planted his first ball for six. There might not be anyone in the country seeing the ball bigger at the moment.
But he couldn't stay with England's Test vice-captain, slapping James Coles to long-on, which sounded the beginning of the end for the hosts, who lost Jordan Clark and Tom Curran, holing out to the same fielder at deep square leg in successive balls.
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