Prest helps Hawks soar
HAMPSHIRE finally cracked their Edgbaston hoodoo by making last night’s Vitality Blast final against Lancashire.
The Hawks had lost at the semifinal stage on each of their previous six visits to Birmingham for finals day, but produced a stunning display to cruise past Somerset and avenge their defeat in the corresponding fixture last year.
Last September, Somerset required 47 runs from the final three overs with just three wickets standing, but produced a heist to win with a couple of balls to spare.
This time, they needed 54 at the same stage with one more wicket in hand. Crucially, two of the overs were bowled by Nathan Ellis, Hampshire’s Australian death specialist, and Tom Abell’s team team were crushed by 37 runs.
It extended an extraordinary run by a team that appeared to be destined for the southern group’s wooden spoon when they lost their first four games of the campaign.
This, their 11th victory in 12 since, was founded on a tigerish defence of 190 that included three run outs. There has been a consistency about their selections that has translated into performance. Significantly, Hampshire were the only one of the four semi-finalists not to be denied players by England selections.
Teenager Tom Prest held Hampshire’s innings together with 64, after their prolific openers James Vince, the competition’s leading scorer, and Ben McDermott fell in consecutive overs following a rollicking first-wicket stand of 47.
Only when their southpaw spin duo of Roelof van der Merwe and Lewis Goldsworthy were operating were Somerset able to apply the handbrake. Their combined figures were 8-0-53-4. On what remained an excellent batting surface throughout, the rest of Somerset’s bowlers leaked 132 runs from 12 overs.
When it came to their turn to bowl, Hampshire took regular wickets to leave Somerset with a similar predicament to 2021 – only this time there was no wriggling off the hook, Ellis wrapping up the two-time champions’ passage into the evening clash with Lancashire by bowling Jack Brooks and Peter Siddle with consecutive slower balls.
Earlier, Lancashire produced a stunning run chase in a third classic Roses clash of the season, getting to their 205-run target with eight balls to spare courtesy of 75 from Keaton Jennings and an unbeaten 63 from captain Dane Vilas.
Jordan Thompson, Yorkshire’s last-over hero with the ball in the quarter-final win over Surrey, had lived up to his Big Show nickname with a 17-ball 50 to power the Vikings to the second biggest score in the 20-season history of finals day, only for Lancashire to consign it to third place 90 minutes later via some sustained savagery that saw 89 runs come from the powerplay alone.
M Lancashire’s England paceman Saqib Mahmood could be given the all-clear to return to bowling following three months on the sidelines.
Mahmood has an appointment on
Tuesday to assess his stress fracture of the back.
The 25-year-old was a feature of England Test and Twenty20 squads earlier this year but felt discomfort in his first county appearance of the season after returning from the tour of the Caribbean.
He was ruled out for the full season when scans revealed a lumbar fracture.
But any return to action now could put Mahmood in with an outside chance of making England’s squad for the T20 World Cup in Australia this autumn.