T20 Blast, 2018, Day 1: Round-up

The Vitality T20 Blast, the professional cricket T20 league of England has kicked off on Wednesday. All the teams are divided into the North and the South groups. On the opening day, three games were played which provided the fans with some great entertainment.

In the opening fixture, Nottinghamshire faced Warwickshire. Warwickshire won the game by 8 wickets. The second game was played between the Northamptonshire and Leicestershire with the latter winning the game by 4 wickets. In the third game, Sussex defeated Essex in a South group encounter by 36 runs.

Nottinghamshire vs Warwickshire

Warwickshire opted to bowl first after winning the toss. Henry Brookes struck early by picking up Chris Nash in first over. Another opener Riki Wessels was impressive with 41 off 29 balls. Although two more wickets fell quickly after the wicket of Nash, Billy Root ensured that he kept one end tight. With the help of a 27 off 14 from L Fletcher towards the end, Nottinghamshire managed to put up 155 runs for the loss of 7 wickets in their 20 overs.

Warwickshire completed the chase quite comfortably with 8 wickets to spare. Although they lost their opener, Ed Pollock, early, Ian Bell and Sam Hain ensured that they stayed out there in the middle and completed the chase. Ian Bell was the ‘Man of the Match’ with 82 off 57 deliveries while Sam Hain scored 45 off 30 balls. Ish Sodhi picked one wicket in the innings.

Brief Scores:

NOTTS: 155/7 in 20 overs (Riki Wessels 41, Billy Root 33*, Colin de Grandhomme 2/24)

WARKS: 159/2 in 17.2 overs (Ian Bell 82*, Sam Hain 45*, Ish Sodhi 1/27)

Northamptonshire vs Leicestershire

It was the team bowling second that won the second game as well. Leicestershire won the toss and opted to bowl first. Northamptonshire put up a massive total of 218 runs on the board batting first. Although they lost Richard Levi early in the innings, Ben Duckett and J Cobb played brilliantly. Duckett missed out on a well-deserved century as he was dismissed on 96 by Ben Raine. Cobb scored 56 and was complemented well by A Wakely who scored 51 off just 24.

However, they failed to defend this total. Leicestershire started off aggressively. N Dexter scored 38 off 21 to start off. However, it was the skipper Colin Ackermann who scored 66 off just 31 balls laying the perfect foundation to the chase. All the batsmen made small yet great contributions to the team as Leicestershire won by 4 wickets with two balls to spare. Ben Sanderson picked two wickets in the innings.

Brief Scores:

NOR: 218/3 in 20 overs (Ben Duckett 96, J Cobb 56, Mohammad Abbas 1/31)

LEIC: 219/6 in 19.4 overs (Colin Ackermann 66*N Dexter 38, Ben Sanderson 2/47)

Essex vs Sussex

Sussex won the toss and opted to bat first. However, they lost their openers Philip Salt and Luke Wright early after both of them scored 4 runs. Laurie Evans with 61 and Micheal Burgess with 56 stabilised the innings from there on. Jofra Archer scored 24 off 18 balls towards the end to take the innings total to 181 for the loss of 6 wickets. James Porter picked 2 wickets.

Essex struggled to do well in the chase. They fell short by a huge 36 runs. Varun Chopra was 64 runs was the leading run scorer with the bat. David Wiese picked 5 wickets in the innings and was supported by Jofra Archer who picked 3. Rashid Khan picked another 2 wickets in the innings. They were bowled out for 145 within the 20 0vers.

Brief Scores:

SUS: 181/6 in 20 overs (Laurie Evans 61, M Burgess 56, James Porter 2/26)

ESS: 145/10 in 19.4 overs (V Chopra 64, Westley 22, David Wiese 5/24)