Roy ton sets up Northants mauling

Surrey 343 for 5 (Roy 108, Davies 99) beat Northamptonshire 123 (Duckett 56, S Curran 4-32) by 220 runs
Scorecard

Surrey made a convincing start to their Royal London Cup campaign with an emphatic 220-run victory against Northamptonshire at the Kia Oval, powered by a thunderous 74-ball hundred from Jason Roy.

They scored 343 for 5 and then dismissed Northamptonshire for 123 in 24 overs. At one stage the Steelbacks were 61 for 8 - and looking unlikely to surpass Roy's final score between them - before the last two wickets more than doubled the score.

At one point Surrey, who won the toss, looked capable of scoring many more runs than they did. Their best scoring rate was 8.4 an over, when they were 168 without loss after 20.

That dipped slightly, but even when they were 195 for 1, at the halfway point of their innings, it seemed certain they would top 400. But their batsmen found life more difficult once Northamptonshire brought on their spinners.

The opening partnership of 195 between Roy and Steven Davies, equalled the record for the first wicket against the Steelbacks in List A matches, Adam Lyth and Alex Lees having put on the same score for Yorkshire at Northampton last year.

Roy was dropped twice, a difficult chance to Rob Keogh at point off the bowling of David Willey when he was on 23 and, when he had made 87, by Graeme White at deep midwicket, a skier off the bowling of Josh Cobb.

But apart from those blemishes it was a fluent and impressive innings, with shots all round the wicket. He hit 15 fours and a majestic six over extra-cover off Mohammad Azharullah.

But once he was out, caught at short midwicket, the scoring rate dropped, even though Kumar Sangakkara made a sprightly 37 from 38 deliveries. He was second out at 251 in the 35th over and two over later Davies was dismissed for 99 from 99 balls.

Against tight bowling from White, Cobb and Keogh, Surrey's scoring slowed further while Gary Wilson and Ben Foakes were at the wicket, before a late slog from Zafar Ansari and James Burke.

The Steelbacks made an awful start when Richard Levi was bowled first ball by Jade Dernbach, and they did not recover.

They were 6 for 2 in the third over, when Cobb was caught behind off the same bowler, and then 11 for three in the sixth when Alex Wakely was also caught at the wicket off Sam Curran.

Curran, just 17 and the younger brother of team-mate Tom, made an eye-catching debut in this form of the game, and his left-arm pace brought him 4 for 32 in front of England selector Angus Fraser.

Adam Rossington fell to a Curran combination and Northamptonshire's first four batsmen had scored eight runs between them. Only some late hitting by wicketkeeper Ben Duckett, who hit five fours and two sixes in a 45-ball 56, enabled his team to reach three figures.