Vitality Blast 2024 Finals Day – Live Cricket Streaming, Live Scores, Match Reports and Reactions – All Matches – September 14th

For the second year in a row, four teams from the South Group have qualified for Vitality Blast Finals Day, on Saturday, September 14th, at Edgbaston, Birmingham - Surrey, Somerset, Gloucestershire and Sussex Sharks.

Here are all the Live Scores, Match Reports and Reactions.

Somerset vs Gloucestershire, Final, Vitality Blast

Match Summary

Somerset vs Gloucestershire, Final, Vitality Blast

Somerset 124/10 (19.4 ov)

Gloucestershire 129/2 (15 ov)

Result - Gloucestershire won by 8 wickets

Gloucestershire are Vitality Blast champions after their late season surge took them all the way to the first T20 title in the club’s history with a stunning eight-wicket victory over holders Somerset in the final at Edgbaston.

Jack Taylor’s team followed their eight-wicket semi-final defeat of Sussex with another superbly professional performance against their west country rivals, who were strong favourites after beating Surrey in the other semi-final but were soundly beaten with 30 balls to spare.

Miles Hammond (58 not out from 41 balls, three sixes) and Cameron Bancroft (53 from 42, two sixes), prolific partners at the top of the innings this season, shared their second hundred-plus stand of the campaign, putting on 112 before they were parted as Gloucestershire chased a modest target of 125 on a slow pitch that had yielded runs at a miserly rate for most of the day.  

Matt Taylor (3-19) and David Payne (3-27), who have shared 61 Blast wickets this season, were again Gloucestershire’s biggest weapons with the ball as they showed themselves masters of the conditions, the county lifting their first silverware for nine years.

Taylor snared his three in the powerplay, Payne inflicting damage at the end of the innings. Only skipper Lewis Gregory’s half-century kept Somerset in the game as they were bowled out for 124 in 19.4 overs.

Gloucestershire were the outsiders on the day, having qualified for the knock-out stages only on net run-rate after winning their last two South Group games, before upsetting Birmingham Bears on this ground in the quarter-finals.

Their last trophy success came in 2015 in the One-Day Cup, which Somerset will hope to win in next weekend’s final after seeing their hopes of landing a treble come to an end.

Gloucestershire skipper Jack Taylor’s decision to bowl first was rewarded handsomely by younger brother Matt as the left-arm seamer matched his three-wicket semi-final haul in the space of two overs as the favourites wobbled at 41 for three in the powerplay.

Tom Kohler-Cadmore had lifted Gloucestershire’s bowling talisman David Payne for two sixes in four balls but after Will Smeed had sliced to short third, a slower ball in the same over induced a miscue that had Kohler-Cadmore well taken at deep cover. 

The last ball of Taylor’s second over saw James Rew, was brilliantly held by Cameron Bancroft at extra cover and when off-spinner Ollie Price then bowled Sean Dickson first ball attempting a reverse hit, Somerset had lost both their semi-final heroes at 42 for four.

Tom Abell and Lewis Gregory added 44 but boundaries did not come easily and their progress was halted when Abell picked out the fielder at long-on. Gregory timed a couple of super straight sixes but the return of Payne to the attack delivered another jolt as back-to-back slower balls saw Ben Green skew to backward point and Craig Overton spoon to extra cover.

A one-handed diving catch by James Bracey accounted for Roelof van der Merwe. Gregory held things together manfully but, having been dropped on 51, he fell two runs later, hitting Payne straight to long-off, and Josh Shaw claimed Jake Ball as the final wicket via a catch at mid-off as Somerset were dismissed in 19.4 overs.

By contrast with Somerset’s, Gloucestershire’s batting powerplay was near-flawless as Hammond and Bancroft put 49 unanswered runs on the board. The latter started things moving with sixes driven and ramped off Overton and Josh Davey respectively before Hammond closed the sixth over with consecutive extra cover boundaries off Gregory.

After Hammond had despatched Ball for six with a beautiful leg-side pick-up, an eventful 10th over saw Bancroft overturn Green’s lbw on review before almost being run out scrambling back as a ball on the toe left Hammond unable to leave his crease but the over ended with all wickets intact as before at 82 without loss, needing just 43 more.

Bancroft finally departed in the 14th over, pulling Davey to Sneed on the square-leg rope, and James Bracey was caught at mid-off off Jake Ball, before Ollie Price delivered the final blow, hammering Ball for six over long-off to spark ecstatic celebrations among his team-mates, who streamed on to the field to revel in the moment.

 

Reactions and Quotes

Gloucestshire’s David Payne, who took three for 27 in the final and finished the campaign as the Blast’s leading wicket-taker, with 33 wickets, said:

“I think we probably won it with the ball in that first half of the match. It was quite a good toss to win, it didn’t perhaps get as dewy as we thought it would but the ball did seem to come on a bit better in the second half.

“It was a pretty good effort by the bowling pack to keep them to 120-odd, although we didn’t think we would chase it down as well as we did. It was pretty clinical in the end.

“We snuck in through the back door really with a few things going our way but you feel that when you get into the knock-outs it is anyone’s to win and there was a real belief and confidence in the side that we could do it.

“It was good to come here in the quarter-finals. It helped us to get familiar with the surroundings and there was a good crowd in that night so it had a kind of finals day vibe. We felt very comfortable here by the final.

“You need your big players to stand up on night like this, which is what happened but all through the campaign there have been players who stood up and delivered performances. I could go through the side and everyone has contributed.

“And Jack Taylor’s captaincy has been brilliant and he deserves to know that he has been outstanding this year. It is not an easy job but he can hold his head up high and be proud of the way he has led the side.

“It’s a strange feeling because a lot of the Somerset guys are my Welsh Fire team-mates but they and Surrey have set the bar high in that T20 format and we will take immense pride  from beating them. It is pretty special.”

 

Somerset’s Tom Kohler-Cadmore said:

“We didn’t get enough runs on the board when we batted and we felt the pitch got better as the evening wore on.

“They bowled really well and kept taking wickets. If we had got up to 145 or 150 we would have been in the game but as it was when they came through the powerplay without losing a wicket it was game over really.

“The toss was important but that’s cricket and you have to deal with that and the fact was that we didn’t perform well enough.

“Lewis played beautifully and you hoped that there would be someone who could have supported them a bit better but there wasn’t.  Gloucestershire bowled well on the pitch but if someone had been able  to stay with Lewis we might be talking about a different result.

“We can sit and dwell on the negative sides of today but the fact that we put ourselves in the position to be here after playing some good cricket over the season is something we can be proud of. Yes, we made some mistakes tonight but we had a great tournament.

“It really hurts tonight but you win and lose games and when it is that comfortable you have to accept that you were nowhere good enough on the night. So fair play to Gloucestershire, congratulations to them - all we can do is move on to the next game.”

Semi Final 1 - Somerset v Surrey – 11am

Somerset 159-4 bt Surrey 153-9 by seven wickets

 

Somerset took the first step towards retaining their Vitality Blast title by inflicting more pain on rivals Surrey as they came out of the first semi-final with a seven-wicket triumph as Edgbaston hosted its 16th T20 Finals Day.

They had looked in big trouble at seven for three chasing 154 but Sean Dickson (76 from 57 balls) and James Rew (62 not out from 44) shared a stand of 144 for the third wicket as Somerset powered  into the final with eight balls to spare

The win came just 48 hours after the west country side had pulled off a stunning victory at Taunton to cut Surrey’s lead as the Vitality County Championship heads for an exciting climax.

Having been put in, Surrey had collapsed from 69 for one to 114 for six before grafting out 153 for nine in their innings, Somerset skipper Lewis Gregory (three for 15) playing a superb hand with the ball as well as pulling off an excellent run-out, backed up by Josh Shaw’s three for 34 after Dom Sibley had given the innings its only real substance with 48 from 36.

Somerset, who will contest the final of the Metro Bank One-Day Cup next weekend and have their eyes on becoming the first side to complete a domestic treble since Warwickshire in 1994, await the winners of the second semi-final between Sussex and Gloucestershire.

Dan Lawrence departed in the second over of Surrey’s innings when he sliced Davey high in the air on the off-side. Otherwise 62 for one from six was a solid start after being put in. Sibley lifted Davey into the crowd at wide long-on for the first six of the day

A double setback in the eighth over changed the picture somewhat as Gregory struck two massive blows, the canny all-rounder bowling Pope through the gate and nipping one past Smith’s outside edge to clip off stump, removing two England players with consecutive balls. Surrey, slightly shaken, were 86 for three at halfway.

Gregory turned the screw again, running out Rory Burns with a superb throw from extra cover after a poor call by Sibley, then taking his third wicket with the ball as Sibley found the fielder at wide long-on. When Tom Curran played on to Jake Ball, Surrey were 114 for six in the 15th.

Surrey could find no momentum, Gregory conceding just three in his final over. Laurie Evans landed a couple of blows against Ball  but then Chris Jordan, Evans and Jordan Clark all perished trying to clear the ropes, Shaw picking up two of those in his final over.

If 153 for nine looked meagre, it must have felt better to Surrey fans as Somerset were stung three times in the opening 13 balls, Dan Worrall pinning Tom Kohler-Cadmore in front of leg stump and having Will Smeed wafting to be caught behind, either side of a leading edge to cover by Tom Abell off Tom Curran.

But from seven for three, Dickson and Rew - in for the sidelined Banton - saw off the storm and turned 29 for three after the powerplay into 71 for three at halfway. They were behind the rate but looked to have the measure of the pitch.

Although they had three players back from Test duty, England’s T20 series against Australia robbed Surrey of four players from their first-choice side  in this format and their absence was felt as Somerset turned that momentum into a proper charge over the next five overs.

Dickson, having already cleared the rope with a slog-sweep off Cameron Steel, picked up two more sixes off the leg-spinner, with Rew collecting maximums off Lawrence and Clark. With 30 balls remaining, they were just 26 away from a place in the final.

A couple of tight overs by Clark and Jordan will have set a few Somerset nerves twitching but they were settled as Rew, with his maiden T20 half-century in the bag, pulled Jordan for his third six and followed up by cutting him for four to bring the requirement down to three of the last two overs. 

Dickson skewed one in the air to be caught at deep cover but that only invited skipper Gregory to hit the winning runs, which he did by slashing Clark high over third man for six to send Somerset to the final.

Somerset’s Josh Davey said:

“What a partnership that was between Sean and James. There was definitely a few of us wondering of it might be a recurrence of what happened to us in the 2021 final but that partnership was one of the best I’ve ever seen playing under that kind of pressure on finals day, and for Rewy on his finals day debut to put in a performance like that it shows the talent that he has.

“It definitely felt like a new ball pitch. Worrall managed to swing the ball, which is one of the best assets you can have in the powerplay, but as the ball became softer it became harder to score and I thought we bowled brilliantly through the middle part of their innings to haul them back.

“When Lewis got their two England boys out it completely changed the momentum of the game and we felt happy at the halfway stage. We feel it is a pitch where if you can keep the opposition down to eight an over you are in the game.”

 

Surrey skipper Chris Jordan said:

“We would have bowled first on that pitch as well but we got off to a pretty good start with the bat and with the wicket being a little bit tacky we felt it was a score we would have taken if you’d offered it to us at the beginning of the game.

“The way the boys started in the powerplay, to knock over three of their key players, we were in a good position but you have to give credit to Dickson especially. It would have been easy to come out and rebuild in a more conventional fashion but he took a punt and it came off.  After that it was tough to stop them. In between boundaries, he was rotating the strike really well.  The way they played the spin made it tough for me in particular.

“I don’t want to make any excuses because we had players missing. Any eleven that we put out as a club we would back 100 per cent and I fully trusted the players that we put out today. It has been a tough week but that’s part of cricket and we can only look forward.”

Semi Final 2 - Gloucestershire v Sussex Sharks – 2:30pm

Underdogs Gloucestershire will meet defending champions Somerset in the final of the Vitality Blast later after bowling out Sussex for just 106 on the way to an eight-wicket victory in the second semi-final at Edgbaston.

Sussex, who had scored 200 or higher six times in the group stages, were blown away in 18.1 overs as left-arm seamer Matt Taylor and left-arm spinner Tom Smith took three wickets each and David Payne raised his tally to 30 as the competition’s leading wicket-taker while conceding just nine runs in four overs.

Wicketkeeper James Bracey then hammered an unbeaten 49 off 28 balls with three sixes as Gloucestershire, looking for their first T20 title having been finalists just once, back in 2007, eased through to the decider with a yawning 38 balls to spare. Australian opener Cameron Bancroft had earlier hit 39 from 35.

Jack Taylor’s team qualified for the quarter-finals only on net run-rate after losing half their group games, including both clashes with Sussex, but sneaked through with wins in their last two before knocking out hosts Birmingham Bears on this ground to reach their fourth finals day.

Sussex had backed their batting power as the toss fell their way, but suffered a calamitous start, losing their first four wickets for 27 in 5.3 overs. 

Their troubles began when Daniel Hughes, the competition’s leading run-scorer, was bowled off a bottom edge by Payne for just a single,  worsened when Harrison Ward hit a Matt Taylor full toss straight to mid-off, and then doubled when the left-armer’s second over saw James Coles caught at short midwicket and Tom Alsop bowled through the gate from consecutive deliveries.

New batter John Simpson put away two short balls for four but at 35 for four from six Sussex needed to gather their senses. Instead, they had lost three more before they’d reached the halfway point at 65 for seven. 

Tom Clark, sweeping, was bowled by off-spinner Ollie Price, who picked up a second when Fynn Hudson-Prentice hauled six over deep midwicket but was caught there next ball. John Simpson departed leg before to the left-arm spin of Tom Smith, also missing the sweep.

Sussex at least negotiated the next five overs without losing a wicket, but any sense of achievement soon evaporated as Smith became the third bowler of the day to take two in two, Ollie Robinson heaving a slower delivery to long off after adding 38 with Jack Carson before a razor-sharp James Bracey gathered a leg-side wide to stump Tymal Mills. Shaw and Payne conceded just four between them from overs 18 and 19 before Carson’s failed attempt to clear deep midwicket gave Miles Hammond his fourth catch of the innings. 

Needing only 5.35 per over, Gloucestershire came out of the powerplay well on track at 41 for one. They had ridden their luck a little with airborne shots that just evaded fielders but their only casualty was Miles Hammond, who sliced to deep backward point.

Bracey pulled Tymal Mills for the first of his sixes and though they lost Bancroft at the start of the 11th over when he skewed a drive off left-arm spinner James Coles to be well taken at mid-on, by that point just 36 runs were needed.

That came down to 15 following an expensive over in which Mills conceded a second pulled six and a driven four by Bracey before a one-sided contest.

In a moment that summed up Sussex’s afternoon, Robinson spilled an absolute dolly to give Bracey a life two balls before he lofted Carson over the long-off boundary to win the match.

Gloucestershire captain Jack Taylor said:

“We wanted to have a bat, having had success here in the quarter-final here when we batted  first, but when you bowl and field as we did to keep them to 105 you always feel you should win the game. It’s another thing going out and doing it, so doing it so clinically was really nice.

“And what an occasion to be playing Somerset. We’ve had some success against them this season but that won’t count for much. It’s all about who plays better this evening and hopefully that can be us.

“It helps to have had recent experience playing in these surroundings in the quarter-final because we don’t play here that often.  We’ve got some momentum, which is something we speak about a lot in sport, about peaking at the right time. We’ve won four in a row now - why can’t we make it a fifth.”

 

Sussex skipper Tymal Mills said:

“After how well we’ve played in the group stages, that was one of our poorest performances of the season and to do that on finals day is very disappointing.

“But we’ve made huge improvements on where we have been in the last few years so credit to all the backroom staff and all the players for the hard work put in over the last 12 months. My message in the dressing room is to build on this and come back stronger next year.

“Farbs (Paul Farbrace) has given me a lot of freedom as captain to make the team how I want to make it. I’ve tried to lead by example. My main goal was to get the club and the boys to take T20 more seriously and we certainly do that now and hopefully we’ll be back here again.”

 

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