Heavy rain across the country meant that six of the eight Twenty20 Blast fixtures scheduled for Friday night were abandoned without a ball being bowled and one of the others was condensed to five overs a side.
Glamorgan were the potential beneficiaries of the bad weather. With Essex’s match against Kent at Chelmsford one of the casualties of the prolonged downpour, victory over Gloucestershire in that five-overs game would see them steal a spot in the quarter-finals.
They resoundingly failed to take advantage, scoring 45 runs in their five overs after being put in to bat as Gloucestershire’s bowlers excelled – James Fuller bowled a maiden and Benny Howell conceded one run from his over. Graham Wagg batted out 11 dot balls on his way to scoring six runs off 15 deliveries (though one went for four leg byes) before, having twice been struck on the helmet by bouncers, he retired hurt with four balls of the innings remaining.
“Our skill level tonight was very good with the ball,” said Michael Klinger, the winning captain. “Once we saw that the wicket was pretty green and seaming around a bit we got our lengths right and used the wicket really well. I thought with the bat instead of trying to overhit balls like they did at times we played some really good cricket shots.”
With Wagg unable to bowl because of his injury Chris Dent led the reply with an unbeaten 28 off 11 balls and Gloucestershire, who knew they could not advance, reached a match-winning 51 for the loss of two wickets, with seven balls to spare.
“It was really disappointing,” said Jacques Rudolph, who said that Wagg “seems to be OK” despite his blows to the head. “Gloucestershire outplayed us tonight and unfortunately we’re out but I thought we had a fairly decent competition overall. Having said that, we’ve got a few lessons we can learn.”
There was not a single ball bowled at Chelmsford and Essex’s head coach, Paul Grayson, admitted afterwards that, although he would have preferred to go through differently, he was just glad to be in the last eight.
“We would have preferred to have played and beaten Kent to book our quarter-final place but I am still happy we have made it through,” Grayson said. “After our poor start in the competition, when we lost four of our opening five matches, to have reached the quarter-finals is something that we have to be happy with, no matter how it was achieved.”
All the other matches on Friday were rained off in similar circumstances, apart from at Headingley, where Yorkshire signed off a dismal T20 Blast campaign with an eight-wicket win over Birmingham Bears.
Winning the toss, the Bears struggled to 145 all out, Laurie Evans top-scoring with 25. Yorkshire’s acting captain, Alex Lees, set his side on the path to victory by striking a measured 63 from 47 balls with eight fours and featuring in a second-wicket stand of 104 with Jack Leaning.
Once Lees had gone, trapped lbw by Jeetan Patel, Leaning continued on the way to his maiden T20 half-century and he was unbeaten on 60 when Yorkshire crossed the line with three balls remaining.
Twenty20 Blast quarter-finals
Matches to be played from 12-15 August
Sussex v Northamptonshire
Birmingham Bears v Essex
Worcestershire v Hampshire
Kent v Lancashire
