THE show must go on and this one began in sunshine, paused for rain and ended in farce, controversy and the first bowl-out in the Twenty20 Cup. Tim Murtagh won it for Surrey to take his side through to the semi-finals, but it is unlikely that this will be end of it, with Warwickshire so aggrieved that they may yet appeal against the result.

Surrey celebrated as if they had won when, after a six-minute delay, Dewald Pretorius, the Warwickshire No 10, drove the last ball of the match, a full toss from Azhar Mahmood, to mid-off and ran two, and the home side refused to come out for the bowl-out for half an hour. Alan Fordham, the ECB cricket operations manager, intervened by phone and ordered them to take part. The crowd of 5,890 looked bemused.

“It was an honest mistake by the umpires,” Paul Sheldon, the Surrey chief executive, said.

“Allan Jones had communicated to the players that three were needed off the last ball. We would have set a different field otherwise. In knockout games, the ECB say you can have a tie under Duckworth/Lewis, in the group stages you cannot.” The fact that Mahmood’s last ball appeared to be above hip height — a no-ball — added to the confusion.

After Warwickshire had resumed their innings from a rain break, it was announced that their target had been adjusted to 118 in 15 overs. But then, before the last over started, the Duckworth/Lewis target flashed up on the scoreboard as 117.

Perhaps it should not have got that far. The umpires decided that the cut-off time for Surrey bowling their overs should be 8.16pm after Mark Ramprakash, the Surrey captain, had spent the last five overs remonstrating about having to bowl with a wet ball. Surrey started the last over at 8.20pm, but were let off the six-run penalty that would have left Warwickshire needing eight rather than 14 runs off the last over.

The high-drama bowl-out, with five bowlers bowling two balls each, resulted in the stumps being hit only four times in the first 20 attempts. Their were some incredible misses, including a beamer from Neil Carter, of Warwickshire, the joint-leading wicket-taker in the competition.

So it was down to sudden death. Pretorius and Mahmood hit, but Heath Streak missed with an away-swinger and Murtagh held his nerve to win it for Surrey, removing his shirt and running to the crowd before being mobbed by his team-mates.

Show-stopper: Tim Murtagh’s finest second

Show-downer: The ECB, umpires and scorers