Sussex Sharks in T20 blast final
Last night Sussex Sharks beat Yorkshire Vikings by 5 wickets to reach the T20 final at Edgbaston on September 15th.
Whilst I watched it I was not converted to the format.
Brought up on classic stroke players like Lord Ted Dexter, Tom Graveney – and before them Peter May – I do not appreciate the T20 batting slash across the line.
Admiring the line and length of a Derek Shackleton I get no pleasure from the wide white ball delivery.
Wicketkeepers like Alan Knott and Bob Taylor kept wicket brilliantly whereas the T20 one is a batsman like our Phil Salt.
Nonetheless the Sussex Sharks are so good they could best most international sides and more than contributed to Southern Braves winning the Hundred with the bowling input of George Garton, Tymal Mills and Chris Jordan.
Luke Wright played for Trent Rockets and Phil Salt for Manchester Originals.
Last night’s game was necessarily played at Durham’s ground at Chester Le Street because of the third Test at Headingley starting today and Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow and Dawid Malan were absentees from Yorkshire Vikings and Ollie Robinson from the Sharks.
Yorkshire imposed a smaller pitch and then elected strangely to bat first on it. They set a reasonable total of 177.
Luke Wright is one of the best of this format – he was a member of England’s World Cup winning T20 team in the Caribbean – provided the foundation with 54.
Rashid Khan scored a sparkling 27 and the Sharks were home and hosed.
It is sometimes argued that the T20 improves fielding … not Yorkshire Viking’s.
Skied catches were dropped and their ground fielding was sloppy.
With England struggling to find openers the free-scoring Phil Salt might be the answer but he epitomises the modern young cricketer by keeping wicket for the Sharks rather than red ball captain Ben Brown and seeing a more lucrative career pathway in the white ball game.
