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The south Londoners won their first two games to give them a great chance of making the quarter finals

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Surrey off-spinner Gareth Batty believes that the south Londoners can go all the way to Cardiff and triumph on finals day in the T20.

The south Londoners’ strategy so far this competition has been to strangle sides with spin and Batty has claimed seven wickets for 33 in the first two games, against Essex and Middlesex.

“We start every competition aiming to go all the way,” Batty said.

“There’s an old saying ‘Get the right people on the seats in the bus’ and the management did a magnificent job against Essex.

“We take great heart from that. We’re a dangerous team in Twenty20.”

Indeed, Surrey’s side appears to have all bases covered with the blistering pace of Dirk Nannes along with Jade Dernbach or Stuart Meaker up front in the bowling attack.

Then, the south Londoners unleash their spin quartet of Batty, Murali Kartik, Zafar Ansari and Matthew Spriegel and they strangled Middlesex as they added just 46 runs, losing seven wickets in the process, as Batty and co ripped through the Panthers’ batting line-up.

Batting wise, the top order of Rory Hamilton-Brown, Steven Davies and Jason Roy has the potential to be devastating and with Kevin Pietersen likely to be available for a few games the line-up then looks even stronger.

If they fail the likes of Zander de Bruyn, Spriegel and Gary Wilson can come in and take games away from sides as the latter two did against Middlesex on Thursday night.

Surrey have been struggling in the County Championship, lying in seventh just 14 points clear of Worcestershire, who occupy the final relegation spot having played a game more.

However, Batty believes that the out-of-form players in the four-day game can play themselves back into form in the shortest form.

“We’re concentrating on Twenty20 now,” he added. “We’ll forget about the Championship for a little while.

“When we get back to that, we’ll reassess what we need to do as a group.

“The break can help. People who haven’t been in great form in four day cricket.

“Twenty20 is all about playing with freedom. We also played with discipline against Essex.”

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