Somerset’s record chase wins The Blast
Tremendous hitting, sensational catches and a committed crowd deliver the best Finals Day ever!
Ball one: K-C in the sunshine stands
Lancashire’s James Anderson, 43 but, obviously with a portrait stowed in the attic, opened Finals Day having started his Lancashire career before Twenty20 was a gleam in a marketing man’s eye. Somerset allowed 16 balls before a shot was played in anger – the perils of batting before midday in mid-September as feared as ever, even on a sunny morning.
The old stager took some flak in his third over, but he had the last laugh, bowling Tom Abell off the last ball of the powerplay. ‘Doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome’ is a cliche often rolled out when convenient, but experience shows that sticking to your plans usually pays off.
Lancashire’s collective aim – to restrict the boundary count – paid off in part, becalming Somerset for long periods, but it collapsed twice. In the 16th and 17th overs, five consecutive fours were plundered and the final over saw four of five balls hit to the fence. Ten balls going for 39 with the remaining 110 going for 143, at least eight of which could be put down to misfields, shows that it was seldom easy for batters.
Only Somerset’s bemulleted opener, Tom Kohler-Cadmore, who batted from the start to the 19th over for 81, found any fluency, power proving more effective than finesse as a strategy, which might interest Liam Livingstone when his turn comes.
Ball two: Somerset set for the summer’s biggest match
The value of bowling first is illustrated in the scores after three overs: Somerset 17/1; Lancashire 37/2. Not that fielding captain, Lewis Gregory, will be overly concerned since, while a match cannot be won in the powerplay, it can certainly be lost.
It’s actually fine margins that loses matches and there were a few to pick from as the second innings of the first semi-final progressed.
1. TV umpire, Sue Redfern, interpreted a very messy Ultraedge sequence as merely ball on pad with no bat involved and Lancashire’s one real matchwinner, Liam Livingstone, was sent on his way, much to his chagrin. I’m not sure I can recall so long (on the horizontal time axis) a ‘spike’ for a single impact, but, on and off field, the umpires were satisfied and they matter more than me and the fuming Liam himself.
2. Somerset’s bowlers nailed their yorkers and their fielders caught their catches, Lancashire never approached the kind of consistency that scrambles brains. In fact, Somerset won the non-powerplay overs 133 to 86, showing how the batters were bottled up.
3. On paper, Lancashire’s XI looked short on experience needing big performances from Keaton Jennings, Luke Wells, Livingstone and Anderson to overcome their opponents’ greater depth. None could conjure anything that matched Kohler-Cadmore’s impact on the match and the better side won.
Ball three: a shoutout for Howell
England’s Sonny Baker looks much as he did when I saw him at the start of his breakout season – sharp, but not entirely sure where the ball is going. Three wides in his first over and a wicket – the key one of Ravi Bopara in his second. But…if the bowler doesn’t know where the ball is going, how can the batter?
Benny Howell has been one of my favourite cricketers to watch these last ten years or so. There are many bowlers who deliver six different balls in an over because they don’t know what they’re doing, but Howell does it because he does know what he’s doing. Aided by a spectacular catch in the deep by Ali Orr, he struck with the wicket of Saif Zaib in his first over.
Number eight is always a crucial spot in the order, so is it fair to have a man with ten tons and 53 half-centuries lurking down there? Northamptonshire fans will say yes, as Luke Procter played a fine hand advancing the score from 86/6 to 156/7 in the company of the impressive Justin Broad.
Hampshire will feel that they let the game get away from them after the rain break, but they’ll fancy their chances with a target reduced from 159 to 155 by Duckworth-Lewis-Stern. Nobody knows why.
Ball four: Lynn’s win
It was pleasing, if a little curious and ultimately spectacular, to watch Lloyd Pope bowling to Chris Lynn in an all-Australian duel. Pleasing because Pope is a leg-spinner who flights and turns the ball with Lynn a destructive batter and curious because Cricket Australia denied Marcus Harris and Ashton Turner their chance to play in the early semi-final. The spectacle came later.
In a day of sensational catches – seeing them live is a privilege – none were better than George Scrimshaw’s running, over-the-shoulder pouch of Ben Mayes. In my 50 years or so of watching cricket, no element of the game has improved as much as the third skill, pretty much to the point where the best 10% of 1970s fielders ars about level with the worst 10% of the 2020s. Practice makes (almost) perfect.
You can’t catch them in the stands though – well, not the players of course. Lynn smashed 11 sixes, most ten rows or more back, in an extraordinary display of clean hitting that secured a final slot for his team and the first ever Finals Day ton for him. Pope was smashed for five in a row but was spared the ‘Broad to Yuvraj’ treatment off the last ball of the over. You can’t play against that.
Ball five: Fight / For your right / Not to party
I wondered where I had last noticed the slight desperation that always clings to attempts to ‘organise fun’. At, wait for it, Edgblaston no minute must be left unfilled, none in the audience left unencouraged, no sign left unflashing with exhortations to “SING!” in the karaoke session. And all at a volume that does to eardrums what Lynn’s bat did to Pope’s deliveries. Then I recalled (involuntarily) my long-buried memories of mid-70s holiday camps in Prestatyn or Pwllheli. And a shiver ran down my spine…
Speaking of karaoke favourites, the old slogan for the ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ albums came to mind watching Hampshire in the powerplay – “It’s just hit after hit after hit”. Rather like those old stalwarts of Woolworth’s, the question of whether it’s too much of a good thing does raise its head. Like power ballads, power hitting can pale after a while.
Though Hampshire’s innings fell away a little after Toby Albert and James Vince’s stand of 97 off 59 balls, the Lewises (Gregory and Goldsworth) the pick of the bowlers, a chase or 195 would be a Finals Day record.
Ball six: Smeedy get your bat
There was an “Anything you can do, I can do better” vibe to Will Smeed looking at fellow 23 year-old opener, Albert’s, 85 and responding with 94 of his own. Buoyed by a support, many of whom had started on the cider 12 hours earlier and were still in fine voice, he found support in the quarter-final hero, Sean Dickson with a valedictory 33 in his last white ball match for his county and then his captain, tonking 18 off 5 to seal the deal.
Though they never give their fans an easy ride, 14 wins from 17 matches shows that Somerset were the best team in the tournament. And another exciting, if a little overbearing, Finals Day shows that the Blast is the best competition in domestic one day cricket.
But, put your glasses down lads! It’s Hampshire again this morning in the Championship. How can something as fragile as cricket and as rare as victory be treated with such disdain by the suits?