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Edgbaston Cricket Ground
Surrey 127-7 (16 overs): Roy 66, Evans 43; Christian 4-23,
Notts Outlaws 129-4 (13.2 overs): Duckett 53*, Trego 31; Jacks 2-32
Match reduced to 16-overs per side- Notts Outlaws beat Surrey by six wickets
On a crisp autumnal day, Cambridgeshire and Yorkshire walked onto the field, just as Kent and Nottinghamshire did. 4th October 1864, the last time professional cricket was played in this month on English soil before this season. Roll forward 156 years and you have the T20 Blast Finals Day played behind closed doors due to a global pandemic.
I will happily wager a Shilling that not one player, who were donning their whites on that cold Tuesday morning mid-19th century could have predicted this.
After seventy-five millimetres of unrelenting rain fell on Edgbaston over 56 hours, the inevitable news of a complete washout of the scheduled day’s play on the Saturday came through.
The four semi-finalists in Surrey, Gloucestershire, Lancashire, and Nottinghamshire finally got the chance to play for the coveted trophy on Sunday which brought a curtain to the most unusual of seasons.
28 and a quarter hours later than planned at 3:15pm, Reece Topley sent down the first ball to Miles Hammond and play was underway. The rules for the days’ play set as 11-overs per side in the two semi-finals and 16-overs each for the showpiece finale.
After Gareth Batty won the toss and chose to insert Gloucestershire, the first innings of the day more resembled a fact-finding mission than a semi-final.
Obdurately persistent, Hammond swung hard at both opening bowlers in Topley and Will Jacks without making any impression on the ball and getting nowhere. His tenure at the wicket was almost the apotheosis of the Gladiators’ innings.
Whether it was Chris Dent, the captain Jack Taylor, or even Ian Cockbain, no batsman managed to make any real indention to the scoreboard. Cockbain, the 33-year-old Merseysider, entered Finals Day as the in-form batsman, striking the most sixes of any player in the tournament, bludgeoning twenty-two from his previous outings.
Gloucestershire managed to limp their score along to 73-7 off their alotted overs, only really aided through Benny Howell’s lusty blows at the death. Liam Plunkett used all his experience bowling smartly tasking 3-12 off his two overs.
In response to the total, Surrey struck 13 off Graeme Van Buuren’s one and only over, and it is safe to say they never looked back. Despite losing wickets at regular intervals, Surrey were always ahead of the rate and Jamie Overton’s beautiful straight drive for four was a shot that was fitting to win the tie.
It was a surprise to the level at which the game was so one-sided. Gloucestershire having arrived in Birmingham off the back of nine straight wins and an annihilation of Northants Steelbacks in the quarter-final only three days earlier.
After watching the first match, the Lightning and Outlaws took their bows. Having won the toss and having chosen to bat, Liam Livingstone and Alex Davies strolled out and opened their accounts briskly. Davies, the diminutive keeper-batsman struck two fours in his 15 before becoming the first to fall, succumbing to the evergreen Samit Patel.
Livingstone, along with Steven Croft built a wonderful partnership, scoring 43 runs off 27 balls and even once the former departed with 22 to his name, Croft carried on the charge, scoring 33 himself. Cameos from Keaton Jennings, Rob Jones and skipper Dane Vilas helped the Lightning end their innings at 94-4 which felt to all parties as a ‘par score’.
The Outlaws, who arguably have the strongest batting line-up in the county circuit, suffered a shoulder-injury to Chris Nash in the field. The veteran who is leaving the midlands county at the end of the season, had formed a useful opening partnership dovetailing with Alex Hales throughout the group stages and quarter finals, was unfortunate to not get his chance in the limelight, but with every door that closes another opens. Ben Duckett, the left-hander who arrived at Trent Bridge from Northampton in 2019, moved up to the opening position and built a strong stand of 30 off just 16 balls with Hales.
Just like the Lightning did, a steady second-wicket stand saw Notts move the score onto 50 at the fall of Hales, bowled by a beautifully-flighted leg spinner from Matt Parkinson, a delivery that would not have looked out of place in any format around the world.
A period of calm followed with the runs coming steadily, until the score reached 66-4 after seven overs. Requiring 29 to win from 23 balls, Dan Christian, the Notts captain destructively pummelled Liam Livingstone for four monstrous sixes into the Eric Hollies stand. A complete butchering of the Lancashire spinner at the hands of the 37-year-old Australian, effectively cutting the game dead all bar the last knockings and saw the Outlaws through to their third final.
In all of the preceding years we would have seen a mascot race between games, all the commotion of watching Lanky the Giraffe race against the likes of Steeler the dog, Vinny the Viking and Stumpy, the crowd-favourite from Somerset.
We would be seeing laughter and delight in the crowds, a raucous Hollies stand where you would easily find Yogi Bear, the Power Rangers and Flash Gordon stood in front of the Jamaican Bobsleigh team and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Today was evident of how much the county game relies on the importance of crowds, the shortest format of all provides an opportunity for all ages to see three games of cricket whilst feeling as though you are in the middle of the world’s largest party at the same time.
Where else are you afforded the opportunity to watch a nail-biting match whilst having an impromptu sing-along to Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”, just when the game is at the crucial moment? For the first time, in the Covid-summer of Cricket, it was blatantly noticeable that the paying public brings more to the game than a ticket receipt.
Into the evening the two teams went as the 2017 winners took on the 2003 champions to see who can add a second title to their name. One change apiece from their earlier victories in the day; Nottinghamshire’s injury-enforced whereas Surrey’s saw their own 37-year-old entry the fray in Hashim Amla, who despite his maturing age would still be considered a spring chicken compared to his 42-year-old captain in Gareth Batty, becoming the oldest ever player to make an appearance at finals day.
After winning the toss and inserting Surrey to bat, Hashim Amla and Jason Roy took to the middle. Following a reprieve for both batsmen, Amla, who scored three, failed to ever get going and holed out to Christian off Patel. Will Jacks fell for 3 also, leaving them reeling at 24-2 off five overs. Two early catches for Dan Christian, who after his display in the semi final was firing and it was evident to see.
Will Jacks, who has had a sensational summer in this years T20 Blast, scored 309 runs in this campaign at an average of 34.33 from his twelve innings. This combined with his 13 wickets at 16.08 with the ball, the 21-year-old will be disappointed with the way his tournament ended. It was no surprise he was awarded the T20 MVP for the 2020 season.
At the fall of Jacks, Laurie Evans came to the crease to partner Jason Roy. Evans, the stylish right-hander on loan from Sussex, got flying and struck crushing blows in his knock of 43, scoring three fours and two sixes in his innings. The pair put on a stand of ninety before Evans fell, caught off the bowling off Christian. Jason Roy batted wonderfully for his 66 runs and held the innings together, but the breaking of this pairing really killed off any momentum Surrey had built up.
Surrey fell from 114-2 to 127-7, only scoring thirteen runs off the final 15 balls, and did not manage to score a boundary in the last 29 balls off their innings. It was believed to be 20 runs short of where they wanted to be but again, Christian stepped up to the fore stifling any chance of a late-order barrage through his miserly death bowling, picking up 4-23 in the process.
Although the score was felt to be light, Surrey got off to the perfect start. Alex Hales, again opening with Ben Duckett, was cramped for room and strangled, flicking a back-of-a-length ball down to Evans at deep-square leg, the only man within 50 metres of himself.
You could hear an audibly loud cry of “oh no!” the moment the ball left Hales’ Gray Nicholls willow. With Nash missing the game and their regular opener out first-ball, Notts could have understandably began feeling a little sorry for themselves.
Their position did not improve when in the very next over Joe Clarke, who in the semi-final hit a lofted back-foot drive over long-off for six, chipped an attempted slog-sweep off Will Jacks straight down the throat of Jamie Overton at deep-midwicket. He fell for three and Notts were not sitting pretty at 4-2 off nine balls.
In a change to their order from the previous games in the campaign so far, Samit Patel, who would in any other team bat regularly in the top-order was promoted from number eight to four. Patel decided to immediately target Jacks, aiming a hugely optimistic lofted on-drive but was dropped on the boundary by Rory Burns, the current England Test opener, in a chance that was seemingly easier to catch than miss.
The very next ball Patel rubbed salt into Burns’ wounds by hammering a cut shot through cover for four, before inexplicably trying another heave to leg as before and holing out to Burns, this time holding on and giving another scalp for Jacks. 19-3 off 3.3 overs and those in the Outlaws camp were beginning to panic.
The player who benefited from Nash’s absence was Peter Trego who came into the side making his Notts T20 debut, arriving at the crease in a tough situation but with the experience that belies the 39-year-old helped ease Nottingham-nerves and along with Duckett, batted just as the situation required. A player known for huge power, who was released by Somerset at the end of the 2019 year, played sensibly before unleashing crushing blows, striking five fours and one huge six.
Duckett anchored the innings throughout, knowing fully well that if he were at the crease at the end, there was a very high possibility that Notts would win. The former England opener, who had a tour away at Bangladesh and India, averaging 16.67 during his short-lived spell in the national side, cut and swept his way through the innings, rotating the strike and playing risk-free cricket whilst keeping the scoreboard moving.
Eventually Trego was adjudged LBW to Daniel Moriarty for 31, despite replays showing the ball made impact outside the line. Ultimately as Trego departed, it brought to the crease the man of the day in Dan Christian. After taking four wickets, two catches and scoring 30 runs at the point of walking to the crease, he was arguably as in-form as you can get for October cricket.
Christian arrived at the wicket and scythed through the offside several drives and cuts and played swashbuckling pulls and hard-sweeps to keep the scoreboard ticking over. Topley was punished, Plunkett was expensive bowling two no-balls in a solitary over, Overton bowling erratically, going the journey for 16 off his single over also.
The winning blows were stuck by Duckett, pulling through a wide midwicket two consecutive fours to bring up his fifty, but more importantly sealing the title and cueing the celebrations to commence.
As the curtain fell on the 2020 English cricket season, it is not only Nottinghamshire who get to have the final celebration, but also those who were able under the strange times we currently find ourselves. With a global pandemic on the go, to be able to play cricket under this climate to it’s full extent should be reason enough to see a glass raised by all.
Powerplays, reverse sweeps, coloured clothing, and 16-over cricket under floodlights at 10pm. We really have come a long way in the last 156 years.
