Gloucestershire beat Somerset off the final ball, securing a Vitality Blast home quarter-final
It was probably the largest crowd ever to attend a cricket match in England behind closed doors. It was certainly the most vocal when Gloucestershire beat their West Country rivals off the final ball to knock Somerset out of the Vitality Blast, and secure a home quarter-final for themselves. Somerset have the inaugural first-class county cup final to look forward to, against Essex at Lord’s on Wednesday.
For this T20 fixture in normal times the crowd would have been the capacity 15,000, generating £100,000 from beer tents alone. But the noise accompanying the winning hit by Tom Smith, who hit his only ball for four, was pretty loud and visceral as the balconies of the new apartments overlooking Nevil Road held 200 Gloucestershire supporters.
Gloucestershire won because they were as thrifty as ever in the field - no road haulier has yet designed better containers - and because Ian Cockbain kept them alive in the run-chase with 89 off 57 balls. He has no more cracked red-ball batting than his father - also Ian Cockbain, of Lancashire - but at 33, with a baseball stance, he has matured into a top-rate T20 hitter: he has hit the most sixes in this season’s competition, 22, three here.
Somerset lost because they gave their youngsters too much of a chance, harsh it may be to say so. After Steve Davies and Babar Azam had begun excellently - 53 off 5.2 overs - the 18 year-old Will Smeed was promoted to three, and could not score off the last four balls of the powerplay. Babar was left to force the pace, and after some handsome shots - a late-cut off David Payne exquisite - he was caught and bowled by Smith, who along with Benny Howell reined Somerset back.
Lewis Gregory, Somerset T20 captain and England allrounder, could have made more use of himself. He hit 50 off 28 balls but did not appear until the 11th over when Somerset had lost momentum. He gave an over too many to Lewis Goldsworthy, the 15th, which Cockbain mainly dispatched for 19, bringing the target down to a doable 54 off five overs; and then the final over.
The choice lay between Gregory himself, a yorker expert, and a tall Viking-like 24 year-old Ollie Sale, who has not played two handfuls of T20s; and Sale it was, the target 13 off the last over. A tie would not be enough for Somerset: they had to win to qualify ahead of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire on run-rate.
Howell slammed two, four, dot and four before being caught at long-off: three to win off the last. It was a length ball which Smith pulled through deep mid-wicket, not a yorker.
