TRENT BRIDGE (Lancashire won toss): Nottinghamshire Outlaws (2pts) beat Lancashire Lightning by 92 runs
ALL forms of one-day cricket develop patterns and, though batsmen are still exploring the limits of the possible, the key score in Twenty20 has proved to be 168. In completed innings, 85 per cent of sides reaching more than that have won, but nobody last year successfully defended fewer than 133. Between the scores, chances have been about 50-50.
Once Nottinghamshire had made 198 for five, on the back of Stephen Fleming’s 56 from 42 balls, Chris Read’s 41 off 33 and bravura late onslaughts from Mark Ealham and Paul Franks, a Lancashire victory was always unlikely, even had Brad Hodge and Stuart Law been fit. Without them, they fell to the second-biggest defeat, measured in runs, in the tournament’s brief history.
Another element is becoming glaringly clear: spinners are the key bowlers. In their bizarrely topped-and-tailed innings, the Outlaws hammered 75 off the first six overs and a quite remarkable 68 off the last four, which meant that their ability to find only 55 from the other ten, bowled by the slow men, did not matter.
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Though Graeme Swann and Samit Patel, wonderfully caught at mid-off, perished in the first wave, Fleming, opening, batted through with all his customary elegance to the fifteenth over. No cricketer so manifests his delight at merely taking part more than Muttiah Muralitharan and his joy was unconfined when he started with that Twenty20 collector’s item, a wicket maiden.
David Hussey, sweeping, was bowled behind his legs for a third-ball duck, but there were still six wickets in hand when Fleming, leaning back to drive, lost his middle stump to Andrew Crook’s off spin and thereafter Read, Ealham and Franks unleashed themselves with abandon.
Read was eventually bowled by a high full toss but Ealham, made man of the match by the umpires, hit 33 from 14 balls and Franks, facing only seven balls, smashed three of them for six. Nemesis might have awaited had not Law pulled out with fluid on a knee and, crucially, Hodge’s wrist injury means that he will probably not play for the Lightning again before joining Australia for the Ashes.
With Mal Loye magnificently caught on the mid-wicket boundary, Lancashire took 51 balls to stutter to 34 for three in reply and, after Dominic Cork (who oddly did not bowl) had raced to 15, they surrendered four more wickets in as many overs. Cork, coming back for a second run, was beaten by Hussey’s splendid direct hit from long-on and Warren Hegg, the former captain, sportingly “walked” for a catch to Read, his fellow wicket keeper. It was a fine gesture, but the cause had long since been forlorn.
SHOW-STOPPER: The uplifting joy on Muralitharan’s face.
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SHOW-DOWNER: Lancashire’s reply was a non-starter.