Natwest T20 Blast

Quarter Finals:

Lancashire v Glamorgan
Surrey v Worcestershire
Essex v Warwickshire
Notts v Hampshire

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Predictions?

Lancs - Just very good at T20 I think
Surrey - A step too far for Worcs, will miss Ajmal
Essex - Home advantage, although Chelmsford means one innings can win it!
Notts - Closest call, home advantage counts

Four home wins, no chance!

Im going:

Glamorgan - under-estimate them at your peril!
Surrey - too many good players, Worcestershire will miss Ajmal
Essex - surprised Warwickshire got through, Essex have big hitters
Hants - got to back my own team!

Smashing it down at Old Trafford apparently. No chance of play.

Glamorgan - Not sure about Lands without Buttler and you know Jim Allenby ftw
Surrey - Big time players and match winners all over the shop. End of a good comp for Worcs
Warwickshire - Essex too hot and cold for me
Notts - Easily

The rest of the lancs team has been playing superbly, certainly hasn't been a one man show. We do however have a couple of injuries which could severely hamper us, Tom Smith has been in fine form this season.

You've all written off Worcs, that surely means we'll win now!

Very poor performance with the bat from Worcestershire here

Yep Jason Roy's pretty good. Takes 29 from the first two overs

This is just a complete massacre

52 from 20 balls for Jason Roy.

Incredible

Worcester showing the fight, belief and team spirit that has done so much for us this year. We will lose this game, but we can hold our heads high.

Lancs win by 1 run after Glamorgan lost 5 wickets for 8 runs.

Epic choke from Glamorgan

Olly wrote:Glamorgan - Not sure about Lands without Buttler and you know Jim Allenby ftw
Surrey - Big time players and match winners all over the shop. End of a good comp for Worcs
Warwickshire - Essex too hot and cold for me
Notts - Easily

2 out of 3 so far

Maxwell easily the biggest flop of the t20 this season

Incredible chase from Hampshire (aided by some atrocious Notts bowling)

If the England t20 top three doesn't consist of Roy, Hales and Vince in the India games later in the summer the selectors are doing it wrong

Confirmation England players will be available for finals day

Big for Lancs that with Buttler and potentially Anderson

Olly - Lancs may also have a cameo from a gentleman called Flintoff.

Any one of the four Finals Day teams might win itSubject to the draw, I'm thinking likeliest winners will be Lancs, Surrey, Hants, then Warks (completely coincidentally, the placings they finished in their respective leagues). But if Surrey finally play as a whole team rather than relying on    and a few others only to turn up - as has so often been the case this year, they could be hard for anyone - even Lancs with their England past/present star names - to live with. I hope  

Still on my way back from Nottingham.

James Vince, take a bow. Class act.

Olly, totally agree. Roy, Hales, Vince = Frightening

jimbohammers wrote:Still on my way back from Nottingham.

James Vince, take a bow. Class act.

Olly, totally agree. Roy, Hales, Vince = Frightening

I'd imagine that was a great game to watch Jimbo, safe journey home!

We could conceivably have a top 6 of Vince, Hales, Roy, Morgan, Bopara, Buttler in T20. That's one heck of a line up

Olly wrote:Confirmation England players will be available for finals day

Big for Lancs that with Buttler and potentially Anderson

Think it's pretty poor they're available for Finals Day but not for the quarters. But maybe I'm just bitter!

Olly wrote:

jimbohammers wrote:Still on my way back from Nottingham.

James Vince, take a bow. Class act.

Olly, totally agree. Roy, Hales, Vince = Frightening

I'd imagine that was a great game to watch Jimbo, safe journey home!

We could conceivably have a top 6 of Vince, Hales, Roy, Morgan, Bopara, Buttler in T20. That's one heck of a line up

Cheers Olly!

That top 6 would be brilliant.

Semi Final Draw:

Warwickshire v Surrey
Hampshire v Lancashire

  

I have a feeling that Lancs might win the competition.

But that would mean beating Hampshire, Corp    

jimbohammers wrote:But that would mean beating Hampshire, Corp    

Stranger things have happened - tho admittedly not very often.     Suggestion of Lancs was based on a hunch, not any rational analysis of strengths...

I'd love to see us (lancs) win it, and we're going in to on the back of a top performance, however I can see us suffering our usual final day nerves and throwing a game away. Really hope I'm wrong though.

A panicky batting performance - Adams excepted - sees Hants crash and burn to a polished performance from Lancs with the ball and in the field.

Jimbo - Hants well beaten, (but at least Hammers won away )

Clarke falls to a cracker of a ball from Tom Smith. Hope you get that, Corporal - no one else here will!

Good to see a Surrey guy getting runs in the final - just a shame Evans is playing for the Bears! Thanks again, Adams.

Meanwhile, Aderson has Dernbachian figures of 0/41 from 3 overs.

Dernbachian

Very good Guildford!! 

You'll see it in the dictionary five years from now

"Dernbachian - the adjective used to describe horrific bowling figures in the game of cricket"

So who is watching the death of county cricket?

No doubt next year Lancashire will become Manchester, Hampshire will be Southampton, Gloucester will be Bristol, Glamorgan Cardiff and Middlesex and Surrey both London.

Well that's a shocker from the Umpire.

Warwickshire looking like winning this bar an Flintoff wonder show   

Fernando wrote:Well that's a shocker from the Umpire.

Warwickshire looking like winning  this bar an Flintoff wonder show   

Birmingham. As someone who lives in Warwickshire, I don't want anything to do with Birmingham.

Finals day is always a great event, near but so far for Flintoff!

Sport form what are you on about death of county cricket? Its a name for gods sake

The gateway is now open though... Next year we'll have the Cardiff Dragons, Bristol Gladiators, Manchester Lightning, London Panthers, Brighton Sharks, Leeds Vikings...

The domestic structure has been in ruins for years. We will have a totally new domestic game within 10 years.

PS - I'm not sure the fans of Hull City thought 'it is just a name' when the owners wanted to change it to Hull Tigers.

guildfordbat wrote:Clarke falls to a cracker of a ball from Tom Smith. Hope you get that, Corporal - no one else here will!

You've got me stumped there, Guildford!

I do believe that with his innings today Roy  has broken the record (previously held by Adams) for most T20 runs scored in an English season. This season, Roy   scored 677 runs in 15 innings - overtaking Adams' 668 in 19 innings, which was achieved in 2010.

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:

guildfordbat wrote:Clarke falls to a cracker of a ball from Tom Smith. Hope you get that, Corporal - no one else here will!

You've got me stumped there, Guildford!

Tom Smith's Christmas crackers used to be world famous.

I'm on all week.

PS I'm sure you're right about Roy. He deserved much better support from the others against the Bears.

I'm not too fussed about the name change in all honesty. I thought all the agro over Hull was a complete fuss over nothing as well, I mean it doesn't actually change anything. I would still support Middlesex if they were called North London Panthers or something similar. Meh.

There is of course increasing talk of the T20 competition being made into a franchise format. I'm not quite sure what to make of that.

Whatever else someone needs to properly sort out the county schedule. It has not been satisfactory for a while now.

In terms of the actual cricket I think the side who bowled the best at the death won. Both Lancashire and Surrey were very poor against Warwickshire, whilst Hanon-Dalby and Woakes were pretty good throughout. I think Lancashire left themselves too much to do through the Prince and Khawaja partnership which was too slow to get going.

Evans clearly made a mockery of my questioning how good a hitter he could be down the order.

Hampshire had a real bad day which is odd for them. Apart from Will Smith their bowling was off-colour, and they simply never got anywhere with the bat.

A point I would like to make was how poor Horton's reaction to being (incorrectly) given out caught behind was. However bad the decision is this went beyond a look of surprise, shake of the head and a trudge off. Waving your arms around at the umpire, taking your helmet off and clearly exchanging words (to the extent that the umpire had to gesticulate to him to get off the field) is a very poor example particularly from a captain. Buttler's reaction earlier in the day wasn't great either, but the authorities should come down on Horton IMO. Can't let that slide.

Had a great day at Edgbaston. A shame about Hampshire mind you....   

Enjoyed watching Roy bat, just tried to hit every ball for a boundary. How he is not in the England one day set up is a joke!

Corp, at least the Hammers won  

Devastated as a Lancs fan, thought Freddie was going to take us there but it was a fantastic last over from Woakes. Could have sworn the last over started after the cut off point, they had 60 seconds with two balls left in the 18th over which both went for six so surely that takes more than a minute to bowl those balls?

Horton was a disgrace, even more disappointing was that he continued his tirade after the game had finished. Ahh well, always next time

Paul Horton really should be banned for a few games after that reaction, it was shocking!!