Matt Spriegel admitted that Surrey’s failure to reach the Metro Bank Cup knockout stages was “a real missed opportunity”.
The acting head coach was reflecting after Nottinghamshire inflicted defeat by six wickets at the Kia Oval, ensuring the Midlanders made it through to the last eight of the 50-over tournament.
Despite missing 17 players to the high-profile Hundred competition, plus a number of injuries, Surrey had won four of their first seven qualifying matches, their best effort for five years.
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But needing victory in the last, they failed to take advantage of being 175-0 in the 30th over – led by Ryan Patel’s 102 – and their disappointing final effort of 298-8 was not enough thanks to Scotsman George Munsey’s commanding 138.
Spriegel, who has impressed with his handling of a makeshift squad comprising mostly youngsters, conceded: "If you had said at the start of the competition that we would go into our last group game looking to qualify for the quarter-finals, we’d have smashed your hand off.
"But after the way Ryan and Dom Sibley batted in getting us to 175-0, it feels like a real missed opportunity. They set us up really but we didn’t capitalise on it."
Surrey never recovered from Patel being speedily followed back to the pavilion by Jason Roy (2) and Rory Burns (0) as three wickets fell for four runs.
Sibley fell for 84 and after that only Adam Thomas (43) and Ollie Sykes (26) made much impact, Dillon Pennington taking 4-54.
Left-hander Munsey was accompanied by Haseeb Hameed (51) and then Kyle Verreyne (57no) in seeing Notts to victory with 13 balls to spare.
The two teams meet again from Thursday at the Kia Oval at the restart of the Rothesey County Championship in Surrey’s Festival of Red Ball Cricket.
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