2 AM IST and 9:30 PM Local Time: Northamptonshire win by 3 runs! Wow! What a thriller have we been treated to! This is the best of T20! However, funnily enough, both sides did not play their best! There were a plethora of errors from both teams and yet we have a game to savour! Cricket is funny and it continues to come up with such antics!
Glamorgan won the toss and elected to bowl first. Ricardo Vasconcelos started off in fine fashion as he took on Fazalhaq Farooqi. However, the speedster came back strong in his second over. He took out Ricardo and his opening partner Chris Lynn. The Steelbacks middle order could not recover from that. Only Nathan McSweeney got a few as he reached 27 off 26 balls.
The runs finally came from Justin Broad (38 off 25), Calvin Harrison (20 off 17) and Lewis McManus (14 off 5). The lower order stepped up in style. However, just as the revival was brewing, it was cut short by Farooqi again who took out Broad and Harrison. The speedster ended with superb figures of 4/34 in his 4 overs. His bowling spell forced the Steelbacks to settle for a modest 165/8 in 20 overs.
It looked like a relatively comfortable chase. Only regular wickets could do magic for the home side. The powerplay went in the favour of Glamorgan. They notched up 50 runs and maintained the required rate. However, they did lose 2 wickets but despite that they were firm favourites after the first 6. In fact, they stayed favourites till the score was pushed to 65/2 in the 8th over.
However, that is when a classical collapse took place. James Seales, Calvin Harrison and Scrimshaw bowled beautifully in tandem. They applied the brakes and the dot balls brought wickets. From 65/2, the visitors slipped to 94/7. Some high quality, disciplined bowling complimented by some reckless batting gave way to this collapse. It felt like all was over for Glamorgan.
That is when Daniel Douthwaite and Mason Crane joined hands in the middle. The roles were clear. Daniel would clear the rope, and Crane would give the strike to him. They played their parts so well. In fact, Crane contributed beautifully with some timely boundaries as well. They stitched a partnership of 62 runs in just 39 balls. The pair brought the equation down to 10 runs off the last over.
That is when it became anticlimactic. Crane edged one to the keeper and Daniel was stranded at the bowler's end. He did hit a boundary to get to his 50 when he came on strike but it was too little too late. The equation was down to a massive 5 runs off 1 ball. Daniel mistimed the ball and his side fell 3 runs short of the target. The pick of the bowlers were George Scrimshaw (3/33) and Calvin Harrison (2/34).