Yesterday it was Surrey’s turn to open their title defence with a costly defeat. Costly because if the Benson and Hedges Cup holders are to qualify for the last eight, it will depend on the weather as much as anything else and this week’s forecast is less than favourable.

Middlesex’s victory, by eight wickets, was achieved with nearly twenty overs to spare. Their last 18 runs came off just eight deliveries. It must have been a sobering experience for a side that many were beginning to think invincible.

The home side were disciplined in all departments, none more so than with the bat. The batsmen were never in on a pitch that was unsuitable for one-day cricket. But Strauss, Hutton and Shah simply waited for the bad balls to come along; which they seemed to do with increasingly regularity as Azhar Mahmood and Alex Tudor bowled it shorter and shorter.

As he left the field, Mark Butcher looked perplexed. Having been the only Surrey batsman to apply aggression with guile in equal measure, all the stand-in captain could have asked of his battery of seamers was to pitch the ball up and allow it to swing in the breezy conditions.

That said, it was a very good toss for Angus Fraser to win and it soon became evident that every run would have to be wrung out of a drying pitch. Chad Keegan moved the ball both ways in his only spell of eight overs from the Nursery End. Fraser regularly beat the outside edge and was unlucky not to take more than one wicket and Ashley Noffke - who finished with four - really surprised the Surrey batsmen with his pace.

Lord’s was the scene of so many of Ben Hollioake’s finest moments and how the visitors could have done with him yesterday after they collapsed in a manner not too dissimilar to way they began last year’s final against Gloucestershire.

Alec Stewart, playing a forcing stroke, was caught behind in the eighth over. Mark Ramprakash, who was lucky to survive a convincing lbw shout first ball, went four overs later when he too chose to attack. Nadeem Shahid was the next to go, prodding at one, and in the following over Alistair Brown was caught low down at second slip.

Surrey’s fifty came up in the eighteenth over, after which they lost Ian Ward and Alex Tudor to direct throws and Azhar Mahmood to a debatable leg before decision.

The visitors went on to record their fourth lowest total in the competition. Butcher was the only recognised batsman to reach double figures and had it not been for his Gold Award winning 51 off 81 balls the match might have been over by early afternoon.

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