Nannes chastises himself

Surrey paceman Dirk Nannes has revealed he was unimpressed with his bowling performance in the nine-run win over rivals Middlesex in the Friends Life t20 - despite picking up a five-wicket haul.

Half-centuries from openers Jason Roy and Steven Davies helped Surrey set a formidable total of 182 for three and Nannes’ haul of 5-40 - his maiden five-for in t20 cricket - ensured Middlesex could only muster 173 for eight in reply.

Nannes was thrilled to help put his team back into contention to qualify from the South Group with their narrow triumph at Lord’s but insists he was rather fortuitous to claim five scalps.

He told ecb.co.uk: “I would liked to have bowled a little better. I think it’s probably the worst that I’ve bowled in all the games that I’ve played.

“I just had no idea where they (the balls) were going and they (Middlesex’s batsmen) just kept slogging them in the air, which worked for me.

“Cricket’s a funny game, sometimes you bowl fantastically well and you go 0-50 and sometimes you bowl poorly and you take five-fors so I’ll take it for sure. It’s a good night I guess and more importantly it’s a great win for the team.”

Surrey are now just one point behind the qualifying positions with just Hampshire, Kent and Sussex left to play - all of whom are currently in the top four - and Nannes knows their destiny lies in their own hands.

Ahead of tonight’s clash with leaders Hampshire, the Australian added: “If we win games we’re going to go through, which I guess is a good thing for us. We’d like to think we’re pretty big game players and I’d like to think that when we’ve really needed to perform, we’ve done it.

“We’ve still got areas we can improve. I think we can bowl a lot better than we did, I thought our batting is coming together quite well, our fielding’s pretty good as well; we took some good catches.

“Hopefully we put it all together on one day and knock off the top side (Hampshire), that’d be nice.”