Surrey have thrashed the Kent Spitfires by 42 runs in the Vitality Blast at Canterbury.

Surrey posted 193 for seven, Ollie Pope giving them a platform with 53 before Laurie Evans assaulted the death overs, making an unbeaten 62 from just 26 balls.England’s Zak Crawley hit 45 but the Spitfires crashed from 109 for two to 118 for eight, losing six wickets in a cataclysmic 17-ball spell. Mitchell Santner took three for 28 and Kent eventually closed on 151 for nine.

Grant Stewart had Kent’s best bowling figures with 3-27.Surrey openers Pope and Dom Sibley put on 83 for the first wicket, after being put in. The former dominated the strike, reaching 50 with a swept single off Matt Parkinson and hitting one six off Joe Denly over the retirement flats on the Old Dover Road.

The partnership wasn’t broken till the 10th over, when Pope chipped Parkinson to Denly at cover, but Kent then put the brakes on: Jason Roy was stifled and eventually holed out to Parkinson, getting caught on the boundary by Tom Rogers for four off ten balls.

Sibley went for 36, trying to ramp Stewart but hitting him straight to Parkinson at sort third man and Sam Curran went in the same over, driving limply to Denly for one.

Leaning missed a difficult chance to catch Evans off Stewart when he was on 15 and although the assault looked set to begin with five overs left when Santner dumped Wes Agar back over his head for six, he was out for 13 two balls later when he tried to repeat the trick and skied Agar to Rogers just inside the rope.

Surrey were only on 128 for 5 after 16 overs, but Evans hit Rogers for 29 in the 17th. He reached his 50 from 20 balls, in the 19th over, before Ollie Sykes went for 15, run out by Leaning chasing a second. Chris Jordan then holed out to Stewart and was caught by Rogers for a duck.

The chase got off to a bad start when Daniel Bell-Drummond was run out for two by a direct hit from Curran in the second over.

Tawanda Muyeye made 26 from 20 balls but he swiped Santner to Sibley on the cow corner boundary.

While Crawley and Denly were at the crease, however, Kent looked a decent bet, until a catastrophic spell saw them lose three wickets in three balls.

At the end of the 13th Santner got Denly for 28, caught by Jordan at long off and Rogers for a golden duck, to a horrific shot that looped straight to Curran at midwicket.

Crawley was then run out chasing a second off the first ball of the 14th and Sam Billings went in the same over, hitting Smith straight to Jordan.

Over 4,537 were in the Spitfire Ground but the atmosphere had been killed stone dead, well before Stewart was out for two, hitting Curran to Roy at long off.

Curran then had Leaning caught by Sibley four and Wes Agar was run out by Jordan for five off his own bowling.

This left last-wicket duo Fred Klaassen and Parkinson with impossible task of hitting 49 off Jordan Clark’s final over.

Surrey’s Laurie Evans said: “I’ve had a bit of a lean patch in the last year. Batting in the middle order’s not always consistent and it was nice to get a few (runs) under my belt when the team needed it really.

“Days like today are ahead of days when you get a score and lose the game. To get a score when the team need it and you come away with the win it does elevate your performance.

“I think with our bowling attack, whenever you get around 200 we back ourselves. I knew that the slower balls in the middle of the pitch were not easy to hit so it was just about getting that feedback back and there’s a really nice pattern developing in the changing room where we’re starting to communicate a lot more than we have done in the past, so it’s a really nice feeling.

“We’ve spoken a lot about doing the bits that aren’t necessarily the individual parts. It’s he basics of the game and sometimes we haven’t got that right and we’ve relied heavily on individual talent and so it’s about how we’ve come together as a team, even though we probably haven’t seen the results we’d have liked.

“We were close against Hampshire but probably felt we were about 20 short in all the games really and it just didn’t go our way. We were brilliant with the ball in Cardiff and got them to a total where we thought we’d get enough. As a batting unit we’ve been poor but we’ve played on lots of tricky wickets and that was a belter there tonight.”

Kent’s Adam Hollioake said: “Yeah, it’s a funny one when you’re chasing big totals like that. We had opportunities throughout that, innings when we were chasing to get.

“I felt that we had a chance to put ourselves in an opportunity to win. But those three wickets in space of half a dozen balls, that put an end to it. When you got a big total that you’re chasing like that, if you have a collapse at any point or a couple, two or three bad overs, that can put an end to it. That’s what it did tonight. Probably let them get a few too many with the ball, if we’re being honest. And that, in the end, left us a bit short.”

“Yeah, they did bowl and fielded well. I feel like we didn’t quite get It went right. The two games we’ve played so far, we really pride ourselves on those first six overs. I think tonight we did probably just a bit let ourselves down a bit in those first six overs, and then they got a bit of momentum, and that probably led to the total that they got. Not that it wasn’t gettable. I felt like it was, but we could have made it a little bit easier for ourselves.

“Well, I was wrapped with the way we played at Bristol. I was really happy with the way we batted last night at Lord’s. I thought that that total would have been very defendable. Then there was a little bit of blip tonight, I think. Like I said, that first six overs with the ball got Surrey, the momentum they needed, and then we were a little bit behind always trying to get back into the game.”