Jesse Ryder’s explosive innings carried Essex to a 4 wickets victory against Middlesex in their NatWest Twenty20 Blast South Group match at Chelmsford to keep them on course for a quarter-final place.
The New Zealander smashed 59 that included 2 sixes and 8 fours from just 27 deliveries as Essex surpassed their opponents 150 for 5 total with 8 balls to spare.
But he needed two huge slices of luck on the way as George Scott spilled two easy catches. First of all he put down a skier at deep square leg when the batsman had scored 36 and then failed to accept an off-drive at long-off when the left-hander had added a further four runs.
But Ryder did not escape a third time when he put up a simple catch to Ollie Rayner at point to give Mitchell McClenaghan some consolation for the mauling he suffered at the start of the innings when he conceded 21 runs in his opening over.
It was one in which Mark Pettini and Ryder struck him for huge sixes as they went on to raise the 50 stand in the 5th over before the former holed out against Harry Podmore. Ryder drove and pulled with customary venom and once he was out, Westley, despite losing partner Ravi Bopara and Ryan ten Doeschate cheaply, took Essex to within one run of victory.
With the scores level, he drilled a ball from Dawid Malan to Neil Dexter at mid-off who completed a low catch having made 45 from 39 deliveries with the assistance of 6 boundaries.
Without addition, Liam Dawson was bowled by Gurjit Sandhu but Graham Napier soon collected the required single that keeps his side’s quarter-final aspirations alive.
Middlesex were never able to break free of an accurate attack backed up by some fine ground fielding.
Eoin Morgan could only manage three boundaries in an innings of 21 spanning 25 deliveries while John Simpson needed one more ball to gather the same number of runs before he was bowled by Graham Napier.
It was left to 21 year-old Nick Gubbins to provide the one note of sustained aggression after he had lost opening partner Dawid Malan in the first over and sent down by Reece Topley. Gubbins despatched Topley, David Masters and Napier for sixes and also struck three fours while making 46 from 34 balls.
He was eventually caught at long-off by Napier attacking off-spinner Tom Westley whose two overs cost 10 runs. But it was Australian paceman Shaun Tait who really tightened the screw picking up the wickets of Morgan and Ryan Higgins in a four over spell costing just 19 runs.
