T20 Blast: Sam Cook and Will Buttleman steer Essex to an emphatic eight-wicket win over Surrey

Wicketkeeper-batsman Will Buttleman scored his first Essex half-century in only his fifth T20 innings

Essex Eagles revived their T20 Blast campaign as they beat Surrey by eight wickets, who lost for the first time.

In a match reduced to 17 overs a side by rain, the hosts' powerful top order failed as Sam Cook (4-15) helped bowl them out for just 118.

Will Buttleman (56 not out) and Adam Wheater (30) teed up a second win of the season with a 67-run opening stand.

Buttleman hit seven fours and a six in his maiden 50 to take Essex home with nine balls to spare.

• Surrey v Essex scorecard

• T20 Blast tables

Surrey, who began their T20 campaign with three impressive wins followed by two washouts, missed a chance to go top of the South Group and instead remained third, while the Eagles moved up to sixth as they ended a dismal five-match winless run in style.

The hosts were missing England call-ups Jason Roy and the Curran brothers, and Laurie Evans with illness, but drafted in internationals Hashim Amla and Rory Burns.

The Surrey batsmen had averaged more than 10 an over in T20 this season going into the match, but put into bat, they struggled to score at their usual tempo on a lively pitch and slow outfield.

After losing Amla with the first ball of the match off Aron Nijjar (2-33), Dan Lawrence (2-15) had the dangerous Will Jacks (3) caught going for a big hit in the next over, and Cook removed Jamie Smith (20) and England Test opener Burns (2) as the hosts slumped to 39-4.

Ben Geddes made 28 on his senior debut to help rebuild with Jordan Clark (30), and Rikki Clarke (20) quickened the tempo with a six and two fours off a Shane Snater over, but Cook returned to mop up the innings, two balls shy of their allocation.

The Eagles looked to be batting on a different pitch in reply, Buttleman taking the returning Dernbach for three fours in his first over, while Wheater made 30 off 19 balls as they quickly got ahead of the rate and racked up 48-0 from their 5.1-over powerplay.

Clarke took a sensational low diving catch to remove Wheater, but 21-year-old Buttleman batted sensibly to bring up his 50 off 45 balls, and Surrey's miserable night was summed up when Essex brought up victory with a run of four wides from Clark.

Surrey head coach Vikram Solanki told BBC Radio London:

"We've got to be honest enough with ourselves and say we weren't good enough today.

"Having had the powerplay we did, we were probably 20 runs short and it was always going to difficult for us to put Essex under any sort of pressure after that.

"We perhaps didn't assess the pitch well enough and we made some poor decisions about how best to go about playing on it. But we should've definitely made a better go of the powerplay."

Coming next

Tuesday's fixtures:

Notts Outlaws v Worcestershire Rapids, Trent Bridge (18:00 BST)

Gloucestershire v Kent Spitfires, Bristol (18:30 BST)

Derbyshire Falcons v Leicestershire Foxes, Derby (19:00 BST)

Sussex Sharks v Glamorgan, Hove (19:00 BST)