Vince got that call absolutely right. I reckon 9 out of 10 captains would have gone with Crane for that 15th over (I think it was the 15th?) rather than bring Fuller back for his 2nd. It was a pitch for spin, Crane had gone well. It took guts to throw the ball to Fuller instead.
I followed the match on the (not at all biased) Radio Solent commentary, via my laptop, then realised that the match was on 5 Live Sports Extra, a few seconds ahead of my stream. I heard the 'last' ball being bowled, ran around celebrating, then came back to the radio to find that it had been called a no ball, so I then heard the last ball being bowled again. And we STILL won! By one run - if the scores had been tied, Lancashire would have been declared the winners as they were ahead after the 6th over. County Championship next...
12 wins from 13 games is just unfathomable in a format like t20. Even more so in this country, when rain can strike at almost any time. Probably the best ever t20 Hants team was in 2011 (that attack of Dimi, Cork, Tahir, Afridi, Briggs seemed to just defend everything), and I can't remember them getting a streak like that. Vince saying that he'd like both overseas players to return next season, if possible, increases my hope that Ellis might hang around for the one day cup next month.
You just knew McDermott was going to have a good final when @tomw24 said we signed the only Aussie that couldn't bat!
We must get Ellis back if he's available. He's a genuine death bowler with his yorkers and slower balls.
Seems like a few 100 sides didn't do their homework, when you consider that the likes of Riley Meredith, Shaun Abbott, and an aging Dwayne Bravo got contracts - presumably with death bowling in mind - ahead of Ellis. But he could yet turn up as a replacement player somewhere.
“Had to go” & watch The Skids tonight. Watched Hants up until HT & then on phone thereafter. We had “lost” until about 11th / 12th over & then had a sniff. OMG what a finale! OMG ****ing god! Magnificent. Ps. Brilliant band. Jobson is a true frontman. Cracking tunes & brilliant connection with floor
I see that Dane Villas is suggesting that they actually ran 2 successful byes on the last ball. Not exactly in the spirit of the game as clearly the ball was dead but I thought at the time that Hants weren’t strictly correct in breaking the stumps when they did. Also Vince is accused of changing the field on the no ball. Could have got even more bizarre and controversial!
Well done Hampshire on a fantastic win. If aniyone was there, it would be great to share your photos. Who would have predicted this after losing the first three T20 matches? If anyone put a bet on this at the time, you deserve your winnings.
Get in, great stuff Hampshire!!! But why do we always have to be involved in controversial finishes, can't we just win by 10 runs or something?! McDermott should have just stood, with the ball in his hands, by the stumps at his end rather than breaking them. Then, after a few seconds, it would have been obviously a dead ball or he could have run one of them out properly if they still came back for a suicidal second run. We got lucky on two counts at the end, first the early dead ball call and then the umpires not spotting that we were changing the field on a free hit to the same batsman. However, that all comes back to the umpires, not anything Vince or any of our other players did deliberately. Yes, I know we should have had a no-ball ourselves and Woody's wide was never a wide, Vilas possibly was caught behind first ball etc., but it's still a tiny bit annoying that people have ammunition to use against us in our moment of victory.
