WHILE England’s one-day batsmen continue to underperform, James Benning is making a very strong case for inclusion in the national squad for the one-day series against Pakistan in August and September. His brilliant 88 off 54 balls last night, the highest Twenty20 score by a Surrey batsman, was the latest in a series of compelling innings that should give some hope to England supporters.

Benning and Mark Ramprakash, who careered to his own fifty off 19 balls, took the Kent attack apart with some devastating but shrewdly executed hitting in a second-wicket stand of 124 in ten overs. When, at the halfway stage, a total of 131 was showing on the scoreboard, Somerset’s day-old record of 250 was under threat, but good bowling by the Kent spinners, Min Patel and James Tredwell, reined Surrey back.

Patel had made his first Twenty20 appearance only the night before at Beckenham but showed what a wily bowler he is by conceding 19 off his last 3.5 overs. Surrey managed only 67 from their last ten overs but their total of 198 still proved too much for Kent.

After Alistair Brown’s 13-ball 25, Ramprakash assumed the mantle of chief executioner, swinging Tyron Henderson for a huge leg-side six and then driving him thrillingly over the extra-cover boundary. He then carted Neil Dexter for two more sixes in an over that haemorrhaged 25.

Benning drove Tredwell for a straight six to reach fifty off 27 balls and drilled Patel’s first ball over the mid-wicket rope. Benning gave himself enough room to hit down the ground or through the covers. His innings last night, which included 11 fours, followed his 57 from 39 balls at Lord’s 24 hours earlier. Throw in his magnificent unbeaten 189 off 146 balls at Bristol in mid-June in the Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy and you have a gifted 23-year-old that England cannot afford to ignore.

In front of a crowd of 15,219, Kent began brightly, Darren Stevens plundering 31 off 19 balls, before they lost two wickets in the fifth over. Tredwell was third out in the next over, to a late inswinger from Tim Murtagh, but at 73 for three in the eighth over, Kent were only just behind the required rate. Then, however, Murtagh ran out Dexter, the first of seven wickets to fall in four overs amid a helter-skelter of desperate strokes. Nayan Doshi bowled tightly to return three for ten from two overs.