Batsman Moises Henriques will be hoping his first appearance at Kent’s headquarters in Canterbury tonight will be a winning one as Surrey’s NatWest T20 Blast qualification campaign goes to the wire.

The Portugal-born, Aussie-raised all-rounder hit 45 off 43 balls to help Surrey limp over the win line in Thursday night’s low-scoring thriller against Gloucestershire that set up tonight’s ‘winner takes all’ south group derby against the Spitfires – who also need to win if they are to progress to the knock-out stages.

The star of Surrey’s victory over Gloucestershire was teenage seamer Sam Curran, who included a triple-wicket maiden in his outstanding return of 4-13 that helped restrict the visitors to a modest total of 130 for nine. In paying tribute to the young left-armer, Henriques said: “Sam was brilliant there, especially in the powerplay taking three for five. Those first six overs of a match are so important, that’s the time when teams can crack the game wide open by scoring 60 or 70 runs, sometimes more. But Sam reduced them to four for 40, which meant we were always in the game from there on in.

“Chasing low totals can sometimes cause problems though. When we lost Aaron Finch and Jason Roy early on we had to try and just build partnerships and if it [the asking rate] got to eight an over at the end, so be it. We would have liked set batsmen in at the end there, but we kept losing wickets just as partnerships were forming, so it wasn’t to be.”

Looking ahead to tonight’s showdown in the Garden of England, which could yet result in Surrey securing a home quarter-final tie, Henriques said: “I love surrey, they are a great bunch of lads and I couldn’t wait to get back over here this season and represent the club again.

“I think that a victory against Kent will leave our destiny in our hands because, leading into the quarters you want to keep winning as much as possible to maintain the momentum.

“We’ve still a chance of nicking a home quarter final too, which is another incentive because it’s such a great atmosphere at The Kia Oval, big crowds who appreciate good cricket from both sides.

“I’ve never played at Canterbury before, the only time I’ve played against Kent was at Beckenham, so I’m looking forward to sampling the atmosphere there – which I’m sure will be just a little bit different to playing in front of our home fans.”

Surrey will again go into the match without batsman Mark Stoneman, who is playing in England’s day/night Test in Birmingham, as well as Tom Curran and Kevin Pietersen through injury.

Match statistics:

Kent Spitfires v Surrey

The Spitfires have won five of their last six matches played against Surrey (L1).

In fact, they have claimed three wins on the trot at home to Surrey.

Surrey have only managed one win in their last nine on the road (L8), including a defeat to Kent Spitfires.

Sam Northeast (Kent Spitfires) has managed to reach 50 in three of his last four innings at Canterbury.