Fantastic Finch blazes another century

Aaron Finch's incredible white-ball form continued in the United Kingdom on Friday with the Australian blazing his third century from his last 10 T20 matches.

In an astonishing display of power hitting, Finch blasted eight sixes and took just 45 balls to reach triple-figures to see Surrey chase down Middlesex's 221 in just 16 overs.

The Victorian finished unbeaten on 117 from 52 balls while opening partner Jason Roy smashed 84 off 37 at the other end, with the pair's first-wicket stand of 194 setting a new Surrey T20 record.

Surrey's other Aussie recruit Nic Maddinson (13 off nine) helped put the finishing touches on the nine-wicket victory over their London rivals.

Middlesex's Australian import Ashton Agar was largely powerless to stop the onslaught, though his figures of 0-43 from four overs were his side's most economical.

"We got off to a flying start but we looked up and we still needed 10 runs per over after four or five overs, so we knew we needed to keep pushing the game as quickly as we could to give us some options at the back end," Finch told the BBC.

The knock sees Finch rise to the top of 2018's leading T20 run-scorers, having scored 1,156 runs at 60.84 so far this year, a remarkable achievement given his middling Indian Premier League campaign for Kings XI Punjab in which he managed just 134 runs in 10 games.

Finch's ton was also his second in six matches for Surrey, with the right-hander sitting atop the domestic T20 competition's run-scoring charts with 462 runs at 154 and a sky-high strike-rate of 192.50.

FULL SCORECARDS FROM ENGLAND'S T20 COMPETITION

Since arriving at The Oval last month after captaining Australia on their T20 tri-series in Zimbabwe, Finch has managed scores of 58, 131 not out, 83, 43 not out, 30 and 117 not out.

That comes after he smashed the highest score in international T20 history against Zimbabwe last month in Harare with a 76-ball 172.

"That was unbelievable," Surrey captain Jade Dernbach told Sky Sports after his side's win on Friday. "We have just witnessed two of the best T20 players in the world putting on a show in front of a full house and I'm not sure if I've seen anything like it.

"The clean hitting of Aaron and Jason was incredible to watch and what they both did out there is just pure talent."

Marcus Stoinis meanwhile continued the strong start to his UK T20 campaign with Kent, earning player-of-the-match honours after collecting 4-17 and scoring 26 in a low-scoring clash with Hampshire.

Kent scrapped to 7-139 from their 20 overs but miserly bowling efforts from Stoinis and New Zealand paceman Adam Milne (3-14 from three overs) saw Hampshire skittled for just 88.

Usman Khawaja signed off from his stint with Glamorgan with a quick-fire 20 off 12 balls, with the Welsh county's 6-201 proving too many for a Gloucestershire side featuring Michael Klinger (19 off 21) and Andrew Tye (1-50 from four overs).

Elsewhere, Callum Ferguson struck 39 off 33 in Worcestershire's three-wicket win over Durham, James Faulkner went wicketless in Lancashire's defeat to Leicestershire, while Essex duo Peter Siddle (0-28 off two overs) and Adam Zampa (0-25 off two) were powerless to stop Somerset opener Johann Myburgh belt an unbeaten 44-ball 103 in a comfortable Somerset victory.