Bopara: 'When I feel a bit dead, that's when I'm at my best'

Ravi Bopara rolled back the years with a sensational century - his third in a T20 career that has now spanned 22 years and almost 500 individual contests - to power Northamptonshire into Vitality Blast Finals Day at the expense of the tournament favourites, Surrey, on a thrilling night at the Kia Oval.

Bopara has been on the scene so long that he is old enough to have featured in the second-ever day of T20 fixtures - for Essex, also against Surrey, in the original Twenty20 Cup in June 2003. But now, at the age of 40, he produced arguably his greatest knock in the format, to give Northants a shot at their third Blast title, and first since 2016.

The contest had already been reduced to 14 overs a side due to heavy evening rain when Northants - asked to bat first - slumped to 1 for 2 in the first over. Jordan Clark removed Ricardo Vasconcelos with his first ball and David Willey with his sixth, also for a duck.

Bopara, however, remained unfazed by the tough conditions, insisting that Northamptonshire's gameplan was to "just keep going", irrespective of the threat posed by a Surrey team that had topped the South Group with eight wins out of 11 in the competition's group stages.

"It was an amazing win," Bopara told Sky Sports as he accepted his player-of-the-match award. "We knew there was going to be a bit of rain about, and we knew that this pitch might nibble at the start, but our philosophy was 'just keep going' and it will come off. And today it did.

"We're always going to stick with it. Because if someone has a day out, you end up posting a score like that. If someone gets a quick 80 or 100, you're away."

That someone turned out to be Bopara himself, with 12 fours and five sixes in a magnificent unbeaten 105 from 46 balls. Afterwards he said that an inner calmness had been the key to his composure.

"I don't know if I'm getting better, but I was thinking about it all night," he said. "I didn't have that fire in my belly today, and that's when I prefer it, when I feel a bit dead. That's when I feel like I'm going to perform my best. It doesn't always work, but [when it does] it's good."

He also praised his team's bowling effort for closing out the contest, despite a battling 69 not out from 38 balls from Surrey's captain, Sam Curran.

"It was very slippery out there," Bopara said. "The chat was just to hold length. Length was the hardest ball to hit because it just nipped a little bit, and didn't come off the surface at the same pace. We faltered from our plan a little bit in the middle, which brought them back into the game, but then went back to it towards the death. So that was good stuff."

Willey, whose composure with the ball was key to Northants' successful defence, heaped praise on his team-mate, who will head to Edgbaston next week hoping to land his second Blast title, after a match-sealing knock of 36 not out from 22 balls in Essex's victory over Worcestershire in 2019.

"We got him for his experience, and that's exactly what we got … big game, and he stood up," Willey said. "He's had a few murmurs of hanging the boots up, but hopefully we can prise him out for one more year, when he can play like that. It was just exceptional power, and also the skill that he showed there in that innings, from two-down for next to nothing, was fantastic."

Northants are now two games away from joining Leicestershire and Hampshire as the most successful team in T20 Blast history, with three titles each.

"For a small club like us to get to Finals Day [is huge]," Willey said. "We're obviously delighted to be there. It was a fantastic game of cricket here tonight. Hopefully we can build on that going into next weekend."

For Curran, the loss came just days after his pivotal role in Oval Invincibles' third consecutive Men's Hundred title. He is on course to land a second trophy this season, with Surrey favourites to claim the County Championship for the fourth season in a row. But he admitted he was 'gutted' at letting this contest slip.

"It was a great game of cricket, credit to everyone for getting it on," he said. "We're gutted, it hurts very much when you get so close but credit to Northants - they held their nerve and nailed their skills in tough conditions. Good luck to them on Finals Day.

"I thought anything around 140 would be a decent score and obviously with a wet outfield and wet ball it was tough. When I was batting and we kept it at two a ball, I felt like we were in the game, with the batting we had to come.

"Ravi played an incredible knock and showed that world-class experience - in these kind of games, it just takes that one innings. Sometimes you just have to say 'well played' and learn from it.

"It hurts now and it should - this is a tournament we've struggled to win over the years. The boys are in a good place with the four-day stuff and we'll dust ourselves down, keep our heads up and hope to come running in hard on Monday (in the County Championship)."