Worcestershire and Hampshire to contest Metro Bank One Day Cup Final on 20 September
International players, Liam Dawson and Khurram Shahzad, play key roles for their counties, as domestic cricket ponders its future yet again
Ball one: business or pleasure?
We’re told, ad nauseum and usually by those extracting a wedge of surplus value for their own purposes, that sport is a business – but most of it isn’t. Almost all recreational sport could barely be categorised as ‘business’ and even top level sport only sketchily fits in with the orthodoxies of capitalism.
But there it is – they keep telling us so and they believe their reality, and all that comes with it, will be wished into life as a consequence. Some 45 years on, many industries are still dealing with the fallout of Mrs Thatcher’s assertion that There Is No Alternative to the discipline of the market, so cricket is warned.
At this time of year, the tension between the business and the sporting models always surfaces as The Hundred (invented precisely because cricket would not shape itself into normative business structures) finishes, just as the Metro Bank One Day Cup is drawing to its conclusion. Players suddenly become available to counties and, as businesses, they’re free to contract whomever they like and the player, making a living remember, is free to accept an offer or to resume for their county career, having been elsewhere for the last four weeks.
That said, the sport decides its rules. Counties could, voluntarily or via the playing conditions of the competition, bar players being parachuted in once they become free from other obligations. Such a rule might be challenged as a restriction of trade, but it’s rooted in sporting integrity, the longstanding, if somewhat loose, idea that a club uses a largely fixed set of resources within a specific tournament (in football, new signings are ‘cup-tied’ for this reason).
A business will always seek to gain competitive advantage: a club should always prioritise the sporting principles and the interests of its members. Whose side are you on?
Ball two: Orr shows his mettle
Hampshire preferred to travel to a Middlesex outground rather than play their eliminator on one of their own, but that appeared to be more of an issue for fans than for players as they ran out comfortable winners at Radlett.
The match added a chapter to one of the more heartwarming stories of the summer, as Ali Orr continued his rehabilitation as an exciting young player with a matchwinning performance. He had made just one Blast and two Championship appearances prior to a run in the One Day Cup that has allowed him to find his feet again after injury setbacks.
At 95/5 after Henry Brookes had shot out the top order, Orr found a partner in the experienced all rounder, James Fuller, and Hampshire dragged themselves up to set a low, if defendable, target of 230. Once Liam Dawson, enjoying his first long bowl since the fourth Test, disposed of Middlesex’s two best batters, Sam Robson and Ryan Higgins, and the captain, Ben Geddes, there was no way back for the home side.
If your team has a batter who scores 108 in a match in which the next best is 48, you’re unlikely to lose – and Orr’s side didn’t.
Ball three: too few to challenge Rew I and Rew II
There was a reluctant welcome for old friends at Taunton as Duckworth, Lewis and Stern were padded up and ready for action having been unemployed for most of this sunny summer.
Perhaps with one eye on the forecast, Gloucestershire decided to put runs on the board, a plan derailed after James Bracey and Cameron Bancroft were both gone within 14 overs and, with Jake Ball and Tom Lammonby leading the seam effort and Jack Leach parsimonious with his spin, the batting never sparked.
A target of 156 was never enough and it was still not enough after DLS, post a rain break, had amended it to 149 off 45 overs. All that needs is a couple of scores and it was no surprise that the Rew brothers delivered them. They are so pivotal at four and five that you have to remind yourself that James is 21 and Thomas 17. They are evidently the future of Somerset: the question is whether they are also the future of England.
Ball four: Pears’ form ripens
Trump cards are useful in all formats of the game, but perhaps most of all in 50 overs cricket. A gun batter can get a really big one and a goto bowler can use the new ball, come back when a wicket is needed to break a partnership and then take death hitting out of the equation by knocking a couple over late on.
Khurram Shahzad, Worcestershire’s Pakistani Test bowler, hasn’t pulled up any trees so far for the Pears in 2025, but there’s been a steady progression evident. So it was no real surprise that he came good when needed.
A solid rather than spectacular home batting order delivered a solid rather than spectacular score of 275/9 off their full allocation, Jack Leach again keeping it very tight. Somerset knew that a good start is key to a middling chase like that, relaxing the batters to come and allowing wickets to fall without triggering a crisis. The trouble is that Jake Libby knew that too.
He turned to his spearhead and Shahzad took four wickets in his opening spell leaving far too much for Somerset’s captain, James Rew, to do and the game went away from the visitors in fewer than 30 overs.
Worcestershire will play their first one day final since 2019 and I suspect their fans will arrive at Trent Bridge en masse come 20 September.
Ball five: Dawson and Currie too hot for Tykes
Whether you like it or not (and you can tell that I don’t) Hampshire’s semi-final win over Yorkshire at Scarborough turned on a stellar performance from Liam Dawson.
At 78/4 in the 20th over, the visitors were in a hole, but Dawson found a partner in 17 years-old Ben Mayes (89 for the fifth wicket) and than Scotland all-rounder, Scott Currie, who notched a first white ball half-century in a stand of 136 for the sixth wicket. Dawson was out off the second last ball for a List A career-high 142.
The 32nd over of the chase proved the turning point. Yorkshire started it with Imam-ul-Haq past 100 with power to add in the company of a resurgent Finlay Bean. They finished it with George Hill and Harry Duke at the crease with a rebuilding job on their hands that was to prove too much. The batting heroes, Dawson and Currie, picked up a couple of wickets each in a decent match for the all-rounders.
Ball six: a choice between two camels when we need a horse
Cricket is a complex game. Its structure should simplify it, not complicate it still further. That the proposals for 2026 need an article like this one to explain them (I’m using the term loosely) is reason enough to throw them all out and start again.