AARON Finch and Jason Roy, their top-order master blasters, hurried Surrey to a nine-wicket Vitality Blast win against Somerset with a spectacular opening partnership of 69 in just 3.5 overs at the Kia Oval.

Finch’s 43 not out from just 21 balls included three sixes and four fours while Roy’s 28 off 11 balls featured two sixes and three fours, and Surrey overhauled Somerset’s 99-6 with an almost contemptuous ease in a match shortened by bad weather to 10 overs per side.

For Surrey it was a third win from six south group games, while Somerset suffered a third defeat in six despite their captain, Lewis Gregory, thumping 50 not out from 24 balls with four sixes and three fours.

Finch and Roy’s initial assault was breathtaking.

Twenty runs came from Jerome Taylor’s opening over, another 18 from the second over, bowled by Gregory, and the three-over powerplay ended with Surrey a barely-believable 56 without loss after Craig Overton then conceded 17.

A total of eight wides in those first three overs, and 15 overall, hardly helped Somerset’s cause either.

The 10-overs per side match followed a series of heavy downpours in South London that prevented a start until 8.15pm, and despite more rain being forecast for late evening, a near sell-out floodlit crowd of 21,089 – around 1,000 fewer than actual tickets sold – saw some explosive action.

After Roy had hit Roelof van der Merwe’s slow left-arm to long on, Finch’s fellow Australian, the left-hander Nic Maddinson, scored 15 not out as Surrey romped to 102 for 1 to complete victory with 3.2 overs to spare.

Finch, who finished the match by top-edging a pull at Taylor over third man for six, now has 315 runs from only four T20 innings.

The first storm appeared just after 4pm, two and a half hours before the scheduled start, and rain continued to fall at regular intervals until the skies cleared enough for the Oval groundstaff to start a mop-up operation and for umpires Neil Bainton and Ben Debenham to hold an inspection at 7.20pm and decide there could be a contest.

Surrey, who had suffered an abandoned match the previous Friday evening when rain intervened after they had posted a county record T20 total of 250-6 against Kent at Canterbury, welcomed back England white-ball international opener Roy and fit-again all-rounder Tom Curran for their first Blast appearances of the campaign.

And it did not take the elder Curran brother long to make a meaningful contribution.

Called up to bowl the third over of the match, after Surrey had predictably chosen to field first on winning the toss, Curran had Steven Davies leg-before for 11 with his second ball and then forced Peter Trego to flip up a catch to keeper Ben Foakes to depart for a second-ball duck.

Johann Myburgh swiped legside sixes off Sam Curran and Rikki Clarke, but then Clarke held on to a fine return catch later in the fourth over to dismiss Myburgh for 16 and leave Somerset 29-3.

It soon got worse for the visitors, with James Hildreth leg-before to Gareth Batty for 1 as he aimed a reverse sweep at the veteran off spinner and big-hitting New Zealand all-rounder Corey Anderson caught behind off Clarke for 8 as the innings declined to 46-5.

Sixes by Gregory off Batty and a remarkable Roelof van der Merwe heave over the cover boundary off Mat Pillans boosted Somerset’s scoring rate, although Van der Merwe then lifted a catch on 9 later in Pillans’ over.

The players briefly left the field when more rain began to fall with Somerset 73-6 off 8.3 overs but, on the resumption, Gregory drove Jade Dernbach for successive sixes and, in a final over of the innings also memorable for three sprinkers suddenly coming on for about 30 seconds on one side of the square, Gregory plundered another six and four off Tom Curran to give his side something more substantial to defend.