10 from The Big Hitters

Northamptonshire Steelbacks 161-8
beat Nottinghamshire Outlaws 153-9
by 8 runs

Durham Jets 156-6
beat Yorkshire Vikings 149-9
by 7 runs

Saturday 20 August 2016

T20 Blast Finals Day

Played at Edgbaston

Twitter @ball_sup

Gillespie Gunslinger Gauge - steady at TWO. Ballance & Willey.

Sighs. Dry day.  Which allows me to deal with the main issue. It's successful. They won't change it. But, I don't know how we got here. T20 is a great low attention span game. Set up as high intensity, compressed sport at it's best. Yet, on showcase day, we play three games. 120 overs of the stuff. Longest day in cricket. For the bish bash bosh. I don't get it.

Anyway, early start, rain around, schedule subject to change, may even spill into a Reserve Day. I didn't know whether I was coming home or looking for a hotel. Big crowd. The New Fans aplenty. I walked past some fella who was excited because beer was being served in different plastic glasses to his previous pint. Beer Snakes easier with the new ones. Won't knock it. Not my scene. Not my drinking environment of choice. Dry day.

There is still a deal of debate about the future of ECB T20. City Based Franchises. We already have them. A common central brand, franchised to local dealerships, a lot of which are in cities. Call it what it is. The leaked proposal amounts to fewer teams & new names.

I've blown cold & hot. Finals Day has just hardened my views. We need each team to play fewer games. Make the games matter. Fourteen games per team. To whittle down to the last eight is far too many. That's madness. No sense of event or occasion. Too many games per night. No focus. It's that sense of event, of every game counts, which is central to the success of Big Bash in Australia.

We've got 18 Counties. With Northants & Durham in this year's Final. The best way to have fewer games is a full two Division meritocracy. Nine teams per Division. Eight games per County. I'd go to Semi Finals. Followed at a different time by a full on Final. There'd need to be a play off system for promotion & relegation.

I'd just about slide to an unbalanced nine games per County. To preserve existing home & away big games like Lancashire v Yorkshire and Middlesex v Surrey. But, if they're in different divisions of the meritocracy. So be it. Their big games will have to be against someone else.

The England Boys back for Yorkshire today. Back from choreographed International Cricket. Into they're all trying, some tough characters, Big Boys Cricket. Shell Shocked. Lo, it came to pass.

Root 7, Bairstow 3, Ballance quacking. That won't do. Switch on.

Yorkshire had to take a recognised Batsman deep into the chase. Leaning was out 35 short of the target at 122-7 off 17.2. That left Bresnan, Plunkett, Rashid & Rafiq too much to do. After just 10 combined from the Big Hitters. Won't do it. Didn't.

353/760