This post looks at the amazing denouement to the One Day Cup final between Leicestershire and Hampshire which took place at Trent Bridge yesterday. I covered the Leicestershire innings yesterday, so today’s post looks at Hampshire’s response.
HAMPSHIRE SEEMINGLY IN CONTROL
Although Leicestershire took regular wickets, and Hampshire were always behind the required rate the southerners seemed to be in control of the chase for much of its duration, with Prest, Weatherley and Dawson all making major contributions. With three overs to go the pendulum seemed to be swinging a little Leicestershire’s way, with Hampshire needing 25, and the last pair of batters who could be expected to do anything in that department together…
THREE OVERS OF SWINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS
These final three overs formed a story in their own right. The match seemed to have swung decisively back Hampshire’s way when Joshua Hull leaked 14 from the 48th over, meaning that Hampshire needed 11 off the last two overs, a walk in the park by modern limited overs standards. Chris Wright bowled the 49th over of the innings, and in it was a superb one. All Hampshire were able to accrue from it was three singles, leaving them eight to get off the last over. It has become something of an axiom of modern limited overs cricket that one wants to settle the issue before the final over, and what happened in the 50th over of this innings went some way to showing why this is so. Hull had been very expensive to this point, and Hampshire may still have fancied their chances at the start of the over, but things soon got very tight – the first three balls yielded singles meaning that the ask was now five off three balls. The fourth ball of the final over virtually settled the contest, Liam Dawson being caught by Wright off Hull to bring Scott Currie, a specialist bowler, in at the strikers end, with suddenly five needed off two balls. Currie scored a single, which did at least get Keith Barker, a genuinely competent batter, on strike, with four needed from the final ball. Hull kept his head, and Barker could do no better than a single giving Leicestershire victory by two runs, after the latter had been 19-4 and then 90-6 in their innings. Not quite “BY THE BAREST OF ALL MARGINS!!”, but an epic contest, which was alive right down to the 600th ball out of 600. Harry Swindells, whose extraordinary maiden list A century (117* off 96) had given Leicestershire a total that they could seriously think about defending was deservedly named Player of the Match. Leicestershire last won an equivalent of this trophy as long ago as 1985, and have largely been struggling on all fronts in recent years. Hampshire were possibly over casual in their handling of the chase, allowing the required rate to climb up over eight per over, clearly thinking “one big over will do it”. They got that big over in the 48th, but it did not do the job for them – Wright’s salvage operation in the 49th gave Hull something to defend in the 50th, and my impression listening in was Hampshire didn’t really try to do more than score singles off the first three balls of the final over, at which point Dawson panicked and got himself out, which virtually sealed things. All of Hampshire’s major scorers struck at well below 100 – Dawson 57 off 64, Prest 51 off 62, Weatherley 40 off 52 and Brown 33 off 43, while only Holland (16 off 13) and Barker (12* off 11) managed to score at over a run a ball. Full credit though to Leicestershire for hanging on at the death, even if Hampshire can be said to have contributed to their own downfall. A full scorecard can be viewed here.
PHOTOGRAPHS
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