Surrey v Yorkshire Vikings: Opportunity knocks to step up and lead Vikings to T20 Finals Day

Neither they, nor Surrey, their quarter-final opponents at the Kia Oval, will have their England players available in a clear indication of the priorities of the England and Wales Cricket Board.

That no window has been built into the schedule so that the T20 quarter-finals and Finals Day can achieve their full potential tells you everything you need to know about the state of the game in this country and the calibre of individuals purporting to run it.

Why, it’s as if the ECB deliberately wants the competition to fail while at the same time The Hundred is backed to the hilt as it continues on its mission to win over those who had previously equated the word “cricket” with a chirping insect.

David Willey, the Yorkshire T20 captain, is one of those who will be missing in London due to a clash with the T20 series between England and India that starts in Southampton tomorrow. Also involved in that three-match series are Harry Brook and Dawid Malan, while Adil Rashid would have been involved had he not been making a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow are unavailable too, along with Surrey’s Ollie Pope, their Test match team-mate, while the hosts are also missing their own captain, Chris Jordan, along with Sam Curran, Jason Roy and Reece Topley.

The other quarter-finals have also been affected, leaving the man in the street short-changed and what should have been a high-quality advert for the county game something rather less in terms of personnel.

In his parting message to the players ahead of the game, remarkably the first meeting between Yorkshire and Surrey in the 19-year history of the T20 tournament, Willey posed a simple question: “Who is going to stand up?”

Who is going to seize the day, as it were, in the absence of so many big names as Yorkshire try to reach Finals Day for only the third time.

Will it be Finn Allen, perhaps, the New Zealander who has flattered to deceive in his eight games to date.

Mostly, Allen has got a start but has a highest score of 48. He certainly has the big-hitting power to win the game on his own.

Will it be Shadab Khan, perhaps, the Pakistani who came with a big reputation but has been an even bigger disappointment.

Shadab had just started to show signs towards the end of the 14-match group stage of better form with the ball, but the stats don’t lie: 79 runs in nine innings at an average of 9.87 and tournament bowling figures of 34-0-316-7. It hasn’t been good enough.

Like Finn, Shadab is a big-match player, though, capable of sparking into life at a moment’s notice. This would be a good time for the flame to ignite.

Yorkshire Vikings (from): Allen, Bess, Fraine, Hill, Khan, Kohler-Cadmore, Loten, Luxton, Lyth, Revis, Tattersall, Thompson, Waite, Wharton.