T20 Blast 2019, Day 7: Round-up

On the 7th day of action in the T20 Blast, three games were played out of which two were quite interesting. These matches went down to the wire and in the end, it was Gloucestershire and Lancashire who held onto their nerves at the critical junctures. In the other encounter between Surrey and Glamorgan, the hosts registered a mammoth victory.

Glamorgan was bowled out for just 44 runs in this fixture leading to a huge embarrassment. Tom Curran, Imran Tahir and Gareth Batty were all excellent with the ball and literally unplayable. With the willow in hand, Miles Hammond was one of the most impressive performers of the day.

Here is how things progressed on the day:

Gloucestershire vs Middlesex – South Group

Middlesex couldn’t get a huge score on the board after they elected to bat first in the game. The in-form Dawid Malan perished for just six runs while Stevie Eskinazi and Dan Lincoln scored 40 and 30 runs respectively. Towards the end, John Simpson raced his way to a 29-ball 42 which pushed the team’s score to 148/9.

It wasn’t an easy chase for Gloucestershire either. Despite Miles Hammond providing an aggressive start by scoring 63 off 35 balls, the rest of the batsmen in the top-order struggled. Benny Howell and Jack Taylor made handy contributions of 33 and 24 which assisted the team in getting over the line with just four balls and 2 wickets to spare.

Brief Scores:

MDX: 148/9 in 20 overs (Stevie Eskinazi 40, Dan Lincoln 30, David Payne 3/32)

GLOUCS: 151/8 in 19.2 overs (Miles Hammond 63, Benny Howell 33, Steven Finn 3/30)

Result: Gloucestershire won by 2 wickets.

Surrey vs Glamorgan – South Group

The track wasn’t easy to bat on in this match and it kept getting worse as the game progressed. Glamorgan might have made a huge mistake by letting Surrey bat first. Will Jacks was impressive with a 40 while Aaron Finch mustered 28. Jordan Clark remained unbeaten on 26 before Surrey was bowled out for 141 runs. Marchant de Lange picked up a four-wicket haul in the innings.

It was a terrible nightmare of a chase for Glamorgan. They kept losing wickets one after the other. Fakhar Zaman (17 off 27 balls) and Chris Cooke (13 off 20 balls) were the only batsmen who got to the double digits. Other than that, there was just one player who got past an individual score of 5. The team was ultimately bowled out for 44. Tom Curran, Imran Tahir and Gareth Batty picked up three wickets each.

Brief Scores:

SUR: 141/10 in 20 overs (Will Jacks 40, Aaron Finch 28, Marchant de Lange 4/26)

GLAM: 44/10 in 12.5 overs (Fakhar Zaman 17, Chris Cooke 13, Tom Curran 3/3)

Result: Surrey won by 97 runs.

Yorkshire vs Lancashire – North Group

There were several small, yet important contributions after Lancashire decided to bat first in this game. Both the openers Alex Davies and Liam Livingstone scored 25 runs each while Glenn Maxwell also mustered the same number of runs. Skipper Dane Vilas was the best batsman and potentially made the difference with his 24-ball 43 as his team got to 170.

Yorkshire got extremely close in the chase but failed to get over the line. The likes of David Willey, Harry Brook and Nicholas Pooran got off to starts and looked good. However, none of them could stay in the middle until the end and see the team get through. In the end, Lancashire managed to win the game by a mere 9 runs margin.

Brief Scores:

LANCS: 170/6 in 20 overs (Dane Vilas 43, Glenn Maxwell 25, Jack Shutt 2/31)

YORKS: 161/9 in 20 overs (Nicholas Pooran 43, David Willey 32, Saqib Mahmood 3/33)

Result: Lancashire won by 9 runs.