ALASTAIR Cook scored just eight but Tom Westley and Ravi Bopara both hit superbly-paced half-centuries as Essex Eagles completed an impressive six-wicket NatWest T20 Blast victory against Surrey in front of a 20,000 crowd at the Kia Oval.

Westley hit 55 from 41 balls, with a six and seven fours, and Bopara a 48-ball 57 with five fours and Essex went on to overhaul Surrey’s 169 for eight with four balls to spare.

Ryan ten Doeschate, with 13 not out, and James Foster, who swung his first ball for six, off Moises Henriques and then hit the winning four in a seven-ball unbeaten 18, made sure Essex got over the finishing line with a flourish after a third wicket stand of 115 in 14 overs between Westley and Bopara that was a masterclass of controlled batting.

For 42 successive deliveries, from the ninth to the 16th over, they did not allow one single dot ball and, after coming together at 24 for two, they made a tough chase look easy.

Ten Doeschate also pulled Henriques for six in an 18th over that cost 15 runs.

Essex, who needed 30 from the last three overs after Westley had been bowled behind his legs by Matt Dunn and Bopara had been brilliantly caught by a diving Kumar Sangakkara at long off, required just five by the time Azhar Mahmood ran in to start the final over, and Foster cut his second ball to the cover ropes to seal the win at 170 for four.

It was a victory that Essex badly needed, because they had begun the game on the bottom of the South Group table with four defeats from their first five matches.

Surrey, for whom this was a third loss in four games, only got as many as they did because Zafar Ansari swung four sixes in an eye-catching 39 not out from only 16 balls in the closing overs of their innings.

Before Ansari’s late assault, only Sangakkara with 58 from 38 balls, with a six and eight fours, took the attack to the Essex bowlers with any real vigour.

Cook’s highest T20 score, in just 32 matches of short form cricket, came against Surrey at the Oval in June 2009, when he hit an unbeaten 100 from 57 balls, but here England’s Test captain managed only one boundary, a beautifully-struck extra cover drive for four off Matt Dunn, before hoicking the same bowler to Tom Curran at deep mid wicket in the third over.

Jesse Ryder had already gone by then, smashing Dunn for four and six off the fourth and fifth balls of the Essex reply but then missing an attempted carve into the offside from the next ball and being bowled for 11.

But Westley and Bopara were more than equal to the challenge and Dunn’s 3 for 34 was ultimately in vain.

Surrey’s innings got off to a poor start with Steven Davies bowled for a first ball duck by a fine off break from Westley.

That was only the second ball of the match and worse was to follow for the home side when Jason Roy, on 9, mis-hit the nagging seam of David Masters straight to Cook at mid off in the fourth over.

Roy, selected earlier this week for England’s one-day international squad for the upcoming series against New Zealand, has now scored just 22 runs in four T20 knocks this season.

Last year, the 24-year-old was the competition’s leading run-scorer with 677 runs at an average of 48.35, with nine scores of 50 or more.

Sangakkara hit Graham Napier straight for six in the fifth over, delighting the huge crowd by taking fours from the next two deliveries as well with a short-arm jab of a stroke through mid wicket and then a resounding pull.

Australian all-rounder Henriques helped Sangakkara to add 57 in six overs for the third wicket, driving Shaun Tait for a superb straight six and then swinging Westley for another maximum.

On 22, however, Henriques was bowled by Bopara, the pick of the Essex bowlers with 3 for 18 off his four overs of canny medium pace.

Bopara also bowled Azhar Mahmood for 20, soon after Gary Wilson had been well held low down by Napier at third man for a duck off Tait and Sangakkara’s fine innings had been ended by a catch on the deep square leg boundary by Ten Doeschate off Westley.

At 120 for six in the 16th over, Surrey looked to be underachieving significantly with the bat but Ansari drove Westley for six, pulled Tait for four and then, despite the loss of James Burke to Tait in the 18th over, launched his 19th over assault on Napier to haul his side up to a total they could at least try to defend.