Match Reports, Results, Scorecards and Reactions - Vitality Blast 2023 - All Matches - June 8th
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Match Reports, Results, Scorecards and Reactions - Vitality Blast 2023 - All Matches - June 8th
Here are the Vitality Blast June 8th 2023 Match Reports, Results, Scorecards and Reactions for all the matches being played today.
Top Tournament Stats - Vitality Blast 2023
North Group
June 8: Notts Outlaws v Durham (Trent Bridge, Nottingham)
Notts Outlaws took at least temporary possession of top spot in a tightly bunched North Group as they deposed Durham with a 26-run win in the Vitality Blast at Trent Bridge.
Despite Netherlands all-rounder Bas de Leede hitting 58 from 41 balls to be top scorer on the night, from the halfway stage of their innings Durham never looked likely to get close to a target of 188, with Samit Patel (3-30), Jake Ball (3-38) and Matt Carter (2-25) leading an impressive performance in the field by the home side.
Leg-spinner Nathan Sowter raised his tally to 17 wickets as the North Group’s leading wicket-taker, finishing with four for 29, as the Outlaws built on an 82-run second wicket stand between Colin Munro (49 from 28 balls) and Alex Hales (39 from 22), with middle-order runs from Patel (28) and Steven Mullaney (21) pushing them up to 187 for seven.
Durham opted to field first and picked up an immediate dividend when left-arm spinner Liam Trevaskis bowled Joe Clarke with the second ball of the match but that was the limit of their success in the powerplay as Notts powered to 65 for one with Hales 33 from 19 balls and Munro on 29 from 17, Hales having hit Brandon Glover over long-off for the first six of the night, Munro dishing out similar treatment to Wayne Parnell.
The introduction of Sowter’s leg spin ended the Hales assault, his compatriot Ashton Turner taking a good diving catch on the long-on boundary. The Australian-born bowler struck again in his second over as Matt Montgomery was leg before reverse sweeping, he and Ben Raine dragging back the scoring rate as the Outlaws’ innings reached halfway at 98 for three.
Sowter, continuing in the fine form he has shown throughout this season, dealt the home side a third major blow as Munro, having just driven him to the rope to move within one run of a half-century, did not quite get enough on his next attempt to find the boundary, Turner taking a second catch, at long-off. Notts were grateful that Trevaskis couldn’t hold on to a stinging return catch offered by Tom Moores on one as they moved to 139 for four from 15.
The Outlaws needed a strong finish and Moores signalled his intention to provide it by hammering Sowter over long-on for six, only to become a third victim to the Sowter-Turner combination as the leg-spinner picked up a fourth scalp for the second match running. De Leede bowled Patel for 28 from 26 three balls later but skipper Mullaney’s 21 from 13 balls ensured Durham would need to score at more than nine an over.
It was closer to 10s at the end of Durham’s batting powerplay, from which they emerged with 52 runs but three wickets lost after Alex Lees, who had cleared the rope off Shaheen Shah Afridi in a 13-run opening over, reverse swept Patel’s left-arm spin to short fine leg, Graham Clark holed out to deep mid-wicket off Carter’s off spin and Michael Jones was well held by a back-peddling mid-off from Ball’s first delivery.
Durham looked on course to be up with the pace at the halfway stage but suffered a double setback in the 10th over that handed the initiative to Notts as Patel struck twice in three balls, bowling Robinson for 27 from 16 and having Turner caught second ball as he tried and failed to clear the boundary at wide long-on. Carter then turned 80 for five to 91 for six in the next over as Parnell, who had finished the 10th over with a straight six, chipped him straight to extra cover, putting the visitors firmly on the back foot.
De Leede landed a couple of meaty strikes to move into the 40s but as the last five overs arrived, Durham needed a few more, with 68 required from 30 balls, but continued to lose wickets, Trevaskis out trying to paddle-scoop Ball before De Leede - missed earlier when Afridi seemed to lose the ball in the floodlights - hit the Pakistan international to Mullaney at extra cover. Ben Raine then found Alex Hales on the long-on boundary as Ball claimed his third wicket, leaving an unlikely 31 required from the last over, with nine down, as Durham slid to an eighth consecutive Blast defeat against the Outlaws.
South Group
June 8: Middlesex v Sussex Sharks (Lord’s, London)
Stephen Eskinazi’s 94 proved in vain as Middlesex went down by four runs to Sussex at Lord’s to set an unwanted record of eight successive defeats.
Seaxes skipper Eskinazi batted throughout the chase for 182 but needing to hit the last ball from Tymal for six he swung and missed, leaving Sussex the victors. It means 12 successive defeats in all in the format for the men of Lord’s.
Sussex, for whom this was just the second win of the campaign, owed much to Pakistan international Shadab Khan’s 59 from 30 balls, during which he shared a fourth wicket stand of 91 with veteran skipper Ravi Bopara (38), a record for the south coast outfit against Middlesex in the Vitality Blast.
Luke Hollman and Ryan Higgins were the pick of the home attack with two wickets apiece.
Middlesex initially held sway in the powerplay, removing Michael Burgess and Tom Alsop cheaply.
The former’s scratchy effort ended when he nicked De Caires to Jack Davies and there was a second catch for the wicketkeeper when Alsop flashed at a wide one from Martin Andersson.
Tom Clark twice swung Andersson over the ropes but should have been caught attempting the hat-trick only for Higgins to drop a dolly at mid-wicket. And the opener was given another life when he charged Hollman only for Davies to miss the stumping.
Higgins atoned in part for the drop when he bowled Clark soon afterwards, but wicket-taking balls had been wasted and that proved costly when Khan and Bopara went on the offensive. Khan was especially belligerent with two glorious straight hits among his five sixes as he sped to 50 in 24 balls, with his skipper, as he has done so often at Lord’s, Bopara proved an excellent foil.
Khan eventually slashed Higgins to Andersson on the point fence to spark a mini collapse which also witnessed the end of Bopara, but James Coles (21) employed the long handle to good effect as the visitors posted an imposing score.
The hosts made another poor start when Joe Cracknell lobbed Fynn Hudson-Prentice’s first ball to mid-on’s hands, but three successive fours from Eskinazi in Henry Crocombe’s first over gave them some impetus. Eye in, Eskinazi flat-batted Tymal Mills over point for six as 60 came from the powerplay.
Eskinazi raced to 50 in 31 balls with a six and five fours and Pieter Malan caught the mood, pulling Mills into the Tavern Stand hospitality boxes. Bopara, in a typically frugal spell, ended a stand of 85 when he bowled Malan for 36, but 79 were needed from the final 48 balls.
Max Holden was reprieved on four when dropped at cover only to hole out at mid-wicket off Nathan McAndrew with 43 needed but successive fours from new man Jack Davies kept the hosts in the hunt. Two more fours from the wicketkeeper’s flashing blade off the expensive Mills left 21 needed from the final two overs and when Eskinazi lapped McAndrew that elusive win looked in sight.
Davies though departed to a brilliant catch by Clark on the mid-off fence and 12 off the last over proved too many.
Middlesex bowler Tom Helm said: “Frustration and disappointment really though that is a lot better today than some of the past games. It is a really tough one to take because we got so close there at the end. I think all the boys feel for Eski (Stephen Eskinazi) who played brilliantly to finish on 94 but did not manage to get it over the line. He’ll be hurting a lot. No-one is going to blame him, but he’s going to take that one personally.
“The wicket was pretty good. I don’t think they got too many. It was probably a par score. The difference was the class they showed in the middle with Ravi (Bopara) and Shadab. They put us under the pump there with Ravi bowling his four overs for less than 30. But it was only four runs so it could be a mis-field here or a six hit there.
“It is difficult mentally and confidence-wise in the dressing-room. We’re none from eight now. We’ve played brilliant patches of cricket in the last eight games, we’ve just not managed to do it for 20 overs and that’s the difference between winning and losing. You can do as well as you like for 15 overs and if you let it slip for five at the end, the start or the middle the game can get away from you.
“It’s a horrible cycle pretty much every other day and the games keep coming and there is no respite. It’s kind of good you get to forget the game before and try again with this one, but it’s a tough place to be.”
Sussex’s Pakistan all-rounder Shadab Khan said: “It’s amazing because no-one gets the opportunity to easily play at Lord’s. We were very positive and had nothing to lose here as we haven’t started well as a team. We wanted to win badly, and we were on the right side tonight.
“We (he and Bopara) are the most experienced players in our team, so we had to use that experience. I didn’t start well in this tournament, so that innings I needed badly as well.
“It’s the beauty of cricket. We started well the first four overs with the ball, but they finished the powerplay well. When Ravi and I bowled our eight overs we were in the game at that time, and at the end Tymal (Mills) used all his experience and bowled well.”
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