Friends Provident Trophy Final
Over two days in a rather dismal London, Shane the German and his bunch of merry men were outplayed by a bunch of northerners travelling south for their first final as a county.
Apologies for the lack of preview and my thoughts on who would win, but I wasn’t actually sure which way I was going to go. I did say to a mate before the game started though that I fancied Durham as underdogs to spring a surprise, but I didn’t believe it enough to put any money on it though! I think the word I’m looking for here is “DOH”!
Herr Shane decided (I’m not quite sure why) to put Durham in to bat, and Mustard soon set about showing Hampshire the way to play positive cricket. And at the other end of the innings, Gibson managed to twat Tremlett into the stands a couple of times which was good to watch, unlike the horrific beamer the England “star” followed up with. Setting over 300 to win was a cracking performance from the Durham boys, and it was always going to be an uphill struggle for Hants to win.
The hill became as steep as Everest after the first over though, with Gibson taking two wickets and leaving Hants reeling on 3-2. KP was a bit of a disappointment, but it wasn’t the sort of situation he likes coming in on, despite the amount of practice England give him in one-dayers! At 158-5 when play was stopped it was a matter of waiting overnight for Durham to finish the job off. I’m not quite sure why they couldn’t just use the Duckworth/Lewis method to delay the inevitable, as when they eventually won it on Sunday it was in an almost empty Lords stadium. Not great for the TV, fans, players or anyone really.
Durham fully deserved the win, scoring over 300 after being put it to bat – and Hampshire will wonder how it got away from them quite so much. Maybe it was Warney’s pre match night routine of “pizza and a couple of beers”!
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