NICK FRIEND looks back on some of the standout performers from a rain-interrupted first week of T20 Blast matches
A maiden T20 hundred for the hugely talented 22-year-old opener. A former England Under-19s captain who has previously drawn comparisons to Alastair Cook, he was playing only his eighth match in the format when he posted an unbeaten 102 against the competition’s reigning champions.
He couldn’t follow it up with another score against Kent in a thrilling tie at Lord’s on Saturday, but only two men have totted up more runs in the opening week of this year’s T20 Blast.
Middlesex came into the tournament without the crux of a batting line-up that took them to last year’s quarter-finals, with Eoin Morgan on England duty and Dawid Malan, Paul Stirling and AB de Villiers no longer with the county. Holden took his chance immediately.
Like Holden, his century in the first round of Blast fixtures was his first in the format – to many, hardly surprising for a player that casual observers associate far more with the red-ball game than limited-overs cricket.
However, it is a little-known statistic that in a competition entering its 18th year, Jennings still holds the record for the highest score in a final, coming during his Durham days – his former side who he put to the sword in the only completed game of a rain-soaked first day of the competition.
His 108 came off just 63 balls, with 10 fours and 3 sixes; he is a player with plenty more at his disposal than he is given credit for.
The rarest of sights: a Joe Root appearance in the T20 Blast. So hectic has England’s summer schedule been in recent times, he has hardly had time to stop for breath, let alone give Yorkshire his presence in T20 cricket.
This was just his second game in the competition for his county since Finals Day in 2016, when he made just seven in defeat against Durham. After that, it was another two-year period before his next match – the Roses derby at Emirates Old Trafford. Root made 51 off 22 in a shortened 14-over match, but ended up on the losing side in a thriller.
Twenty-five months on, this was only his 12th T20 since: four for England, seven for Sydney Thunder and now back at Headingley, with Yorkshire facing Derbyshire. He made a classy 64, using up just 40 deliveries, before taking two cheap wickets with his off-spin. A man, perhaps, with a point to prove in this format.
Keaton Jennings hit 108 for Lancashire against Durham
One of few overseas players taking part in this year’s tournament, county cricket knows all about Paul Stirling. Only, this year he is out of Middlesex pink and into Northamptonshire burgundy.
Faced with Worcestershire, last year’s runners-up and winners in 2018 – albeit without both Moeen Ali and Pat Brown, Stirling was in prime form. On his debut for his new club, he dealt out a 48-ball battering, smashing 80 to seal victory with 29 balls to spare.
Don’t discount his off-spin either; he took two wickets in four overs that cost just 26 runs – they bowled 15 overs of spin in the innings. Watch out for Josh Cobb’s side this year; they have won both games unaffected by rain, with Adam Rossington hitting a match-winning fifty against Somerset on Sunday.
A high-quality knock from a high-quality cricketer, Joe Clarke has begun this campaign as he intends to continue it – with a 44-ball hundred to see his team to victory.
This time last year, Clarke was left out of Nottinghamshire’s quarter-final win over Middlesex, with Chris Nash preferred after the former Worcestershire man had endured a poor run of form. This time, however, there is room for both men.
Nash made 55 off 29 balls in the same game, meaning that low scores for Alex Hales, Ben Duckett and Tom Moores were immaterial. With Dan Christian at No.6 and both Steven Mullaney and Samit Patel to come, Peter Moores’ men boast some tremendous depth.
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Glamorgan have already won as many games as they did in last year’s T20 Blast, a feat in no small part down to Chris Cooke, their captain and wicketkeeper.
Granted, that figure sits only at one, but the 34-year-old is the competition’s top run-scorer as one of only two men to have passed fifty in both innings so far – Durham’s Alex Lees the other.
Cooke’s 51 against 2019 quarter-finalists Gloucestershire was match-winning, while his 72 against Birmingham Bears might have been had he been afforded more support from those around him.
Chris Cooke has hit fifties in both games he has played thus far
Alongside Prem Sisodiya, Andrew Salter opened the bowling for Glamorgan in their win over Gloucestershire. While Cooke had ensured that his side reached a decent, middling score at Bristol, it was the spinners who ultimately won the game for the visitors.
Chris Dent had won the toss for the home side and opted for a chase. And so, it was a fine effort from both Sisodiya and Salter – left-arm spinner and off-spinner – to run through their top order, while hardly conceding a run.
The pair bowled 48 balls between them, with 28 dots. Collective figures of 5 for 32 from their eight overs represented a terrific, match-winning return. Gloucestershire’s top six hit just three boundaries between them; and when James Bracey was fifth man out in the tenth over – Salter’s fourth victim, they were just 40 for 5.
Coming into this season, Tom Bailey had only ever played 13 T20 matches in his professional career. Last year, he wasn’t called upon once; the absences, however, of Saqib Mahmood, Liam Livingstone, Richard Gleeson, Glenn Maxwell and James Faulkner have opened up doors, with overs needing to be filled.
Bailey has done more than just plug a hole, though. His seven overs in the competition so far have seen him take 7 for 39, his wickets across two matches against Durham and Leicestershire coming at just 5.57 apiece.
He is two clear at the top of the wicket charts, while his economy rate – also just 5.57 – is meaner than anyone else to have taken more than three wickets.
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A shoutout to the death bowlers. There are few jobs more difficult in the game’s shortest format. Tom Helm could quite easily have filled the spot in this composite side, having managed to squeeze out a tie from a losing position during a high-scoring game between Middlesex and Kent.
Kent needed just six to win off the final over; they managed five. Quinn, though, pulled off an equally unlikely heist. Having already taken 2 for 24 in a washout against Middlesex at Chelmsford, he was tasked with the final over at the Kia Oval, where Surrey needed just nine runs to beat Essex.
The first ball was clipped for a boundary by Ben Foakes, who then exchanged singles and forced a two, bringing the scores level with two balls to go. Quinn brought the field up, leaving just one man on the rope – waiting at fine leg.
Foakes, fooled by the bluff, hooked straight into his hands. And when James Taylor played and missed at the final ball, a share of the spoils had been salvaged for an Essex side who have seemingly forgotten how to lose.
Matt Quinn's final over ensured that Surrey were forced to settle for a share of the spoils at the Kia Oval
There was a time when Danny Briggs was England’s white-ball spinner in waiting. There was a single ODI appearance in 2012 against Pakistan in Dubai, as well as seven T20Is. But that was it – a plan not revisited since 2014.
And yet, the wily left-arm spinner continues to toil away in the T20 Blast, where he is the tournament’s all-time record wicket-taker, now four wickets clear of Yasir Arafat. Of those still active in the game, Samit Patel, Harry Gurney and Gareth Batty are his nearest rivals, but all those are nearer the end of their professional careers than the start.
Briggs, meanwhile, remains just 29 years of age. And in a Sussex side primed for a fierce run at this year’s Blast crown, he made the perfect start. In a high-scoring game where seamers on both sides were deposited all around Hove, Briggs’ four overs were miserly: 3 for 17 representing a fine return in a game that saw 353 runs scored in 39.5 overs.
By the time Yorkshire came to bowl against 2019 semi-finalists Derbyshire, much of the hard work had already been done. While Dominic Cork’s men have had the wool on the White Rose county in recent times, a first innings score of 220 had put Yorkshire in total command.
And Matt Fisher brought an end to any lingering hopes of a mammoth chase by seeing off both Luis Reece and Wayne Madsen inside the first four overs. The pair scored 789 runs between them in last year’s competition as the club reached Finals Day for the first time. Fisher’s figures of 3 for 21 led the way for the home side in a crushing win.
And those who just missed out: Luke Wright, Alex Lees, Ben Sanderson
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