On Saturday we have coming up what is arguably the biggest day on the domestic cricket calendar these days and certainly one of my favourite days of the cricketing year as the domestic cricket carnival heads down to Edgbaston for T20 Finals Day which always sees the 2 semi-finals and final played on the same day along with a host of other entertainment including the famous mascot race. The 4 teams involved this year are Surrey who take on Warwickshire on Warwickshire's home ground which is then followed by Lancashire who have been drawn against Hampshire who have the best record really of all of the county's in T20 in recent years, with the winner of those 2 games then going onto to contest the final later on in the evening in what really is a feast of explosive and exciting cricket.
In my view Hampshire and Surrey are the favourites for the title while Warwickshire in my view have to be big underdogs which makes them incredibly dangerous given the fact that they are playing finals day on their home ground.
What it's time for me to do now is to look ahead to the 2 semi-finals and then rate the chances of the 4 teams before picking my 2 semi-final winners and who I think will be the overall champion:
Semi-Final Preview:
Surrey Vs Warwickshire - Surrey have been incredibly good so far in this competition with both bat and ball, although they did make very hard work of their chase in the quarter-final and since then they have gone on to struggle in the 50 over competition, albeit with a much changed squad at their disposal. What I think that highlights for Surrey is how good their T20 squad is and how impressive they've been in this competition to not even get close to recreating that form in the 50 over competition despite blowing everyone away in the T20 form. The advantage that Surrey have is their experience from top to bottom with England (or at least former England) stars like Kevin Pietersen and Jade Dernbach as well as the spin of Gareth Batty too. Robin Peterson the South African international also offers them a lot of experience and their captain Gary Wilson plays international cricket for Ireland. Their big star this season has been Jason Roy who some people have dubbed as the "Best T20 batsman in England" and while I think other guys like Jos Buttler and particularly Alex Hales are right up there as well, Jason has showed some brilliant form and promise in this form of the game and is the leading run scorer by far in the country this season showing some real maturity with that. Warwickshire meanwhile may be on their home ground but they are massive underdogs in my opinion when it comes to both this match and their prospects of winning the whole competition. Injuries to the likes of Chris Wright, Boyd Rankin and Keith Barker certainly don't help them with the bowling but the return of the experienced Chris Woakes (along with England team mate Ian Bell who will boost the middle order) and the spin of Jeetan Patel has been massive for them in this competition including in the very good quarter-final win over Essex. Their batting has been fronted by the ever impressive Varun Chopra who is also the captain now that Jim Troughton has been forced to retire and I think Varun is dealing well with the added pressure. The experience of the likes of Jeetan Patel, Ian Bell, Chris Woakes and Rikki Clarke will be very important for them and coming in as big underdogs on their home ground can only be an advantage.
Hampshire Vs Lancashire - Hampshire come into this as quite simply the T20 specialists although their team has seen some change to it this year with James Vince the new captain and playing very impressively with those responsibilities. They still have a strong backbone though with the likes of big hitting Michael Carberry and Jimmy Adams but the young guns like new signing Matt Coles, death bowler Chris Wood and left arm spinner Danny Briggs have all be very good for them again this season and helped push them along to another finals day despite not playing their best cricket throughout the competition like they have in previous years. Lancashire meanwhile have been incredibly impressive topping the North Group and then having a tight quarter-final after a "2 day clearing shower" down at Old Trafford. Lancashire have been very good as unit and will be thrilled that they can have Jos Buttler who has been of massive importance to them so far in the competition. Steven Croft has been a key man for Lancashire at the top of the innings. With the ball Junaid Khan has been a key man for them at the death but he's not available to play in Finals Day for them and that will be an enormous loss for the Northerners. However, in his place they have a man that is still well capable of performing in T20 Cricket and I was incredibly pleased to see him picked in the Lancashire Finals Day squad and that is Andrew Flintoff. His presence in the team and his experience could go a long way to pushing Lancashire close and Kabir Ali has had a very good season for Lancashire in the T20 Blast so he can take a lot of the strain. Again Lancashire are probably slight underdogs here and that could give them the advantage with Hampshire missing big overseas presence as well in Maxwell so it should be a very close game.
Predicted Semi-Final Winners: Warwickshire and Hampshire
Predicted T20 Blast Champions: Hampshire
Whoever the winners and losers are on Finals Day I'm sure the real winners will be us Cricket fans as we will enjoy a day of absolutely top quality Cricketing excitement and drama as I certainly see both semi-finals and the final going right down to the wire and having fans of all 4 sides and even us neutrals on the edge of our seats.
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