T20 Finals Day – A Fitting Climax, But Will It Last?

Well, it wasn’t quite the outcome I was hoping for but Essex were worthy champions in the end. But perhaps – cliche warning! – cricket was the real winner in the end. Or more specifically county cricket was the winner.

Despite a pitch that lacked pace, and made big hitting somewhat tricky for long periods, T20 Finals Day delivered in a big way yet again. The first semi final produced a dramatic finish when hapless Notts snatched defeat from the jaws of victory against Worcs.

And the second semi saw Simon Harmer record incredible figures of 4-19 as Essex dashed Dominic Cork’s hopes of lifting a trophy with Derbyshire.

The ensuing final went to the wire. At one point it looked like my team Worcs would retain their trophy quite comfortably. The dew didn’t arrive as early as Essex had hoped for when they won the toss, which allowed the likes of Moeen Ali and Pat Brown to take the pace off the ball effectively and establish a stranglehold. However, the ball seemed to skid onto the bat a lot easier in the last 5 overs and Ravi Bopara took advantage brilliantly. What a stalwart he’s been.

It was only fitting that Simon Harmer was there at the end too. The South African spinner, who has been the best slow bowler in the country for the last couple of years, was easily the man of the day. He’s a class act. His bowling looked unplayable on the spinning surface and he took seven wickets in total across the two games.

There’s nothing particularly flash about Harmer – he’s just a really good old fashioned off spinner – but you can see why he’s been so effective for Essex in all forms of the game. His action is simple, economic, and repetitive, and he gives the ball a pretty good tweak too. The question everybody’s talking about is whether he could / should play for England.

Although he has already played five tests for South Africa (taking 20 wickets at an average of 29), the 30-year old Harmer has said that he’d love to play test cricket for England now that Essex is his home. Whether this is possible or not is something of a grey area at present. There’s talk of Harmer needing to backdate his visa if he wants to play as early as next summer.

Personally, however, I don’t think it would be right for England to pick him. Yes we’ve adopted ‘South Africans’ in the past but we’ve never selected someone who’d actually played test cricket for them. What’s more, although supporters of other countries seem completely oblivious to this fact, England’s foreign imports in the past have usually had strong British connections.

Here are a few prominent examples: Kevin Pietersen’s mum is British. Jofra Archer’s Dad is British. Ditto Matt Prior. Both Allan Lamb’s parents were British. So were Robin Smith’s. And so were Tony Greig’s. Jonthan Trott’s ancestry is British and his grandfather played for England many moons ago.

The only player I can think of who had no British heritage was Graeme Hick. But he served a really long qualification period and played for Zimbabwe as a very young man before they had test status. Consequently, I think that Harmer would be slightly different.

Although some cricketers have played for two countries at international level in the past – Luke Ronchi immediately springs to mind – once again the parallels with Harmer aren’t exact. Ronchi, for example, was born in New Zealand so representing the county of his birth after initially representing Australia wasn’t quite as controversial.

In fact, the only player I can think of who represented one country, emigrated elsewhere, and then represented another was Kepler Wessels. And I don’t think any England supporter would want to sink to Australia’s level when it comes to stealing other nations’ talent (wink, wink).

The other question when it comes to Harmer is whether England actually need him? It’s an interesting question. Jack Leach is currently our No.1 spinner and I’m quite happy with him. Leach is still young and likely to improve; therefore Harmer might only be pressed into action on winter tours when we need two spinners. Would it be worth raising eyebrows around the world for the sake of a thirty one year old reserve spin bowler? I’m tempted to say not.

Although others are entitled to disagree, and inevitably will do so, it just wouldn’t sit right with me if England did fast track him into the squad. The emigration of talented South African cricketers to other countries is a real problem area and it doesn’t seem fair to me. Yes I can understand their reasons for leaving their home country – and this has absolutely nothing to do with being against immigration per se – but I’d cautiously urge the ECB to tread carefully. I’d be against England picking Duanne Olivier in the future too (unless he has some British heritage I’m unaware of).

Anyway I digress. The focus of this article was really meant to be T20 Finals Day itself. It’s always a superb occasion and it was great to see the supporters out in force again – even if several spectators looked the worse for wear by the close. It’s worth pointing out that three of the four sides involved were smaller counties (i.e. they don’t have test grounds) which just goes to show what a great leveller T20 can be. The guys at sportsbetting24.in would’ve had incredibly long odds on Derbyshire reaching the final.

Despite the drama that the Blast usually creates, there was a rumour doing the rounds on social media that this could be the last ever finals day. This is allegedly because the ECB don’t want such a popular event to upstage Harrison’s Harebrained Have A Hit next year. I have no idea if this rumour is true – I suspect not because the Edgbaston website is already encouraging spectators to apply for 2020 tickets – but I wouldn’t be too shocked if it happened.

Of course, the success of Finals Day and the T20 Blast in general raises the question as to whether our domestic cricket actually needs a tawdry competition like Hundred. Fortunately I can answer this question for you right now. The answer is that it doesn’t. English cricket needs The Hundred like a fish needs a bicycle. And it’s as plain as the frustration etched on traditional cricket fans’ faces.

This summer T20 Blast attendances were up 15%. And they’re up a whopping 47% over the last five years. That’s a stunning achievement. Domestic short form cricket is therefore clearly in rude health. It’s bringing in both the punters and the money.

Adding yet another format that will inevitably overshadow the Blast is therefore a crazy decision. Why would you try to fix something that’s so obviously not broken? And why would you risk millions of pounds doing so? As far as business decisions go it’s about as boneheaded as you can get. 

Because the publicly declared rationale for The Hundred is so unsteady, one wonders whether it really is about growing the game, appealing to a broader audience, and getting cricket back on terrestrial television. Let’s not forget that the BBC signed up to broadcast franchise cricket back when everyone assumed it would be a T20 competition.

We can all speculate as to what the real reasons behind the tournament are. Perhaps it’s all about ego? Cynics might say it’s all about making money from licensing. I really don’t know. But what I do know is that the events of this summer – winning the World Cup, Ben Stokes’s miracle at Headlingley, the knife-edge finish to the county championship, and the drama on Finals Day – have reinvigorated public interest cricket far more than an artificial plastic-fantastic franchise fiasco ever could.

James Morgan

Written in collaboration with Sportsbetting24

14 comments

  • Thoughts:

    1) It’s never a good day for County Cricket when Essex win something. ;-)

    2) You can’t go around picking people who have played Tests for another country, I think that’s just too far.
    It’s the top tier. Have to draw the line somewhere.

  • You’ve eloquently explained your case against Simon Harmer being selected for England. As an Essex fan I can only concur!

    One point about Kepler Wessels. I believe he played for Australia when South Africa was banned from international cricket.

    • Ah yes. That’s very good point indeed. The apartheid dimension does change the context quite a lot.

      I do have sympathy for Harmer, as he left primarily because of the quota system I believe (as well as opportunity / financial stability), however it would be highly controversial for England to pick him imho.

      I perhaps should have touched on the whole kolpak debate. Is it right for SA players to come over to England simple for financial opportunity? It’s a tough one because cricketers have a short career and they deserve the opportunity to cash in and look after their families. However, the big 3 in international cricket already have enough of an advantage without counties like SA losing their best talent to overseas domestic teams.

      • I do agree with you on this James. Equally, I don’t think it would be right for England to pick Kyle Abbott (who is also a fine bowler).

  • In the very early days of international cricket a number of cricketers played for both England and Australia, although only one, Billy Midwinter (born in St Briavels, Gloucestershire) actually played both for Australia against England and England against Australia – the others played for the Aussies against England and later for England against South Africa. There was also Sammy Guillen, who played for both New Zealand and the West Indies, and various cricketers who played for India before partition and Pakistan later. Finally, Iftikhar Ali Khan (Nawab of Pataudi Senior) played for England first and later for the land of his birth, India. However, these old exceptions notwithstanding your point about Simon Harmer, and the fact that he actually played tests for the Saffers stands. Also, with Leach established at test level and younger spinners such as Matthew Parkinson, Dominic Bess, Amar Virdi and Liam Patterson-White making varying degrees of a case for themselves (the latter’s very few appearances are balanced by the fact that he achieved some success for Nottinghamshire, whose season has been one of unalloyed failure in red ball cricket).

  • On Harmer, my view is he shouldn’t be eligible for England, but that once he is he should be picked anyway (assuming he’s still one of the best 2 spinners on the circuit).

    It doesn’t sit right that a player with no parental connection can qualify with just 3 years residency. Or that a capped player can shift allegiance from one Test side to another. But those are problems the ICC should fix, not the England selectors. Their only concern should be picking the best side available to win cricket matches.

    Sorry, my mistake. The England selectors’ only concern should be picking the funkiest side available to prove how clever they are. No idea what came over me. So an experienced orthodox spinner with a track record of success probably has no chance anyway.

  • The Hundred – garbage !!! Put the money into the Blast and bring back county cricket to a normal time of year. Test match players should be playing county cricket when not playing tests. Let’s face it they get paid enough. If this system was good enough for Beefy and Willis then it should be good enough for the current players (who mostly are nowhere near as good). Is the ECB listening ? I suspect not since they only care about revenue which streams into their salaries.

  • God must truly be an Englishman, as even after all the thrills and spills of our cricketing summer the weather holds beautifully for a triumphant climax to this most special of any cricket season I can remember. A real carnival atmosphere throughout without a hint of unpleasantness, what more could we ask for in this age of intolerance we seem to live in. Who knows maybe The Hundred will add to all this in time, if it survives next season’s launch.
    As to Mr. Harmer he looks rather innocuous to me. Reminds me a bit of Croft with his jaunty compact delivery, but I guess there must be something about him to keep taking wickets. With the likes of Moin top of the Off Spinning tree at present we certainly need something with a bit of quality.

  • The 100 has nothing to do with attracting “new” people to cricket, sorry slogathon, but everything to do with making money and selling beer. It’s an ECB vanity project, just like HS2 is a Government vanity project.
    I have friends who have already bought tickets for next year’s T20 final which I believe is earmarked for the first Saturday in September. But of course the ECB would be delighted to get rid of it place of the 100 for which they own the franchise.
    The problem with the Blast is that the audience has changed from regular supporters to largely those who only “watch” this form of the game. For example on the BBC thread on the final yesterday there are a very miserly 80 odd comments; a Test match day gets at least 500+. I used to watch it but haven’t seen a game for 3 years for a whole host of reasons. And really ok a couple of tight games but it’s about big hitting, no one made more than 160 Saturday. The pitches at Egbaston are poor to say the least. And do the audience enjoy the cricket, or just the beer? Discuss if you wish.
    As for Harmer, saw him bowl out Surrey last week and he’s bloody good and bats. But what of the future for Kolpaks post Brexit, if it ever happens?
    England squad for NZ interesting, but I don’t want to prempt James’ next piece!

    • It’s a carnival day it with cricket as the central attraction. Yes it’s not to every cricket fans taste, but it’s still a valid form of the game with a definite skill set. Go to test matches these days and there’s at least 1 of the 4 main stands populated by people there for a good day out with their mates, often in fancy dress, always vocal and driving support for their team, which communicates to the whole ground. Yes there’s negatives to this, including the dreaded Mexican Wave, probably sport’s most moronic supporter additive.
      If certain people are only watching this form then they’ll certainly watch The Hundred, so it’s got a ready made audience. Just because the marketing has been so incompetent doesn’t make it a bad cricketing idea, it’s how it’s going to fit in to the existing program that’s causing regular fans palpitations. Can’t see it and 20-20 surviving together, so to me it’s a question of sparring one off against the other.

  • The ICC do need to step in and guarantee some degree of parity across the board when it comes to pay, for uncapped players at least, it’s often easier to switch allegiances in football, yet we don’t see as many top players wishing to naturalise for rivals, because it’s club not country who pay the players. I think FIFA has it mostly right, I’d have been perfectly happy for someone like Archer to be England eligible from the get go (even though in his particular case I think the 3 year waiting period did him good), but someone like Harmer pulling on an England shirt would leave me cold no matter how good he is

  • Ultimately the fans will decide the fate of Finals Day. It’s not for me, because I don’t like sitting anywhere near boozed up ‘fans’ being egged on by Lloyd and Key, even if my team is involved. But it appeals to many people who go for the Edgbaston experience. If the ECB try to eliminate it we should refer the matter to the Supreme Court where R Soles are put in their place.

    Harmer? I’d be disappointed if our spinning cupboard is so bare that the selectors feel it necessary to call on him.

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