Gloucestershire romp to West Country final as Sussex are swept aside

September 15, 2024
12:27 am

Gloucestershire 109 for 2 (Bracey 49*, Bancroft 39) beat Sussex 106 (Carson 26, M Taylor 3-25, Smith 3-25) by eight wickets

Gloucestershire booked themselves a West Country showdown with local rivals Somerset in the Vitality Blast final, to give themselves a shot at their first silverware for close to a decade, as well as their maiden title in this competition, after a crushingly effective eight-wicket victory over Sussex in the second semi-final at Edgbaston.

After being asked to bowl first on a drying pitch that was likely to offer increasing grip for the spinners – and having watched Somerset’s bowlers put the squeeze on Surrey in the opening contest – Gloucestershire made sure that the conditions would be academic come the sharp end, by routing their previously high-flying rivals for 106 in 18.1 overs. Matt Taylor and Tom Smith grabbed the lion’s share of the wickets with twin figures of 3 for 25, but David Payne‘s 1 for 9 in four overs was the epitome of their performance.

After that, the result was never truly in doubt. Despite the early loss of Miles Hammond, Cameron Bancroft and James Bracey broke the back of the chase with a second-wicket stand of 54, and Sussex’s grim day was summed up when Ollie Robinson dropped an utter sitter at mid-on, as Bracey went for broke with just six runs needed. He got it right two balls later, however, with a mighty drill over long-off to wrap up the chase with 38 balls unused.

Sussex hadn’t had a prayer with so few runs to play with. Tymal Mills, doubtless ruing his call at the toss, tried to frontload his strike bowling, with Robinson relatively misery but wicketless in his four overs for 23, while the only other successful bowler was James Coles, whose 1 for 17 in three overs will count as further experience banked at the end of a breakthrough campaign.

Payne and Taylor boss the powerplay
Payne’s harnessing of swing in the powerplay is his “super-strength”, as he told ESPNcricinfo in the build-up, and with metronomic inevitability he proved true to his word once again. His 21st powerplay wicket of the campaign, and tournament-leading 30th overall, was the whopper that Gloucestershire needed above all others.

With 595 runs at 42.50 going into Finals Day, Daniel Hughes had been the rock of Sussex’s batting all season long, but he’d extended his tally by just one more run when Payne outfoxed him in his second over. With a hint of shape from over the wicket, he lured Hughes across his crease then beat his intentions with some extra bounce, the under-edge deflecting into his own stumps.

Five balls – and no runs – later, Sussex’s innings was officially in the soup. Matt Taylor’s low full toss wasn’t quite the yorker he was aiming for, but then nor was Harrison Ward’s leading-edged response. Hammond snaffled the low deflection that somehow carried to mid-on, and though James Coles then cracked three of Taylor’s next four balls for four, he too fell to the fifth, as Bancroft intercepted at short midwicket.

Taylor’s third and final wicket, however, was a true collector’s item. Round the wicket, perfect line and length, it gripped the dry pitch and ripped and bounced like a legbreak through Tom Alsop’s half-formed defences. His hat-trick ball was too full to trouble John Simpson – “you greedy boy!” joked James Bracey over the stump mic, but at 35 for 4 at the end of the powerplay, Sussex were scrambling for anything competitive.

Price is right for middle overs

Ollie Price’s first two balls weren’t the most auspicious. Five wides first-up, then four more byes as a very tight appeal for lbw deceived both batter and keeper. His third ball, however, was bang on the money. Round the wicket to the left-handed Tom Clark, and straightening just enough out of the footholes to peg back his off stump as Clark missed his sweep.

And, after a solitary over for his brother Tom, Ollie made it two wickets in as many overs as Fynn Hudson-Prentice, one ball after finding the stands at deep midwicket, found the fielder there instead, as he got too greedy on a dragged-down delivery, and picked out Hammond’s safe hands once more to depart for a run-a-ball 13.

No let-up through the back end
Five balls was enough for Tom Smith to prise out Sussex’s last realistic hope of a defendable total. Simpson also succumbed to the sweep as he was nailed on the full, just in line with off stump, leaving Sussex beached on 64 for 7 in the tenth, with little option but to bat out the overs and take whatever they could muster.

Robinson and Jack Carson obliged for a time, adding a run-a-ball 37 to drag the total past 100. But back came Smith, tossing it above Robinson’s eyeline to lure a hack to deep mid-off. One ball later, he and Bracey combined for a moment that might have been designed as Jack Russell-Mark Alleyne tribute act, as Smith fired a faster delivery past the pads of the incoming Mills, and the unsighted Bracey whipped off the bails for a stumping that would have graced the club’s trophy-winning glory days at the turn of the 2000s.

With options aplenty and only the resolute Carson resisting, Payne bowled out in the 18th over, conceding just nine runs in total in another stellar display, before Josh Shaw – scarcely any less frugal – mopped up the resistance with 11 balls left unused. It had been a performance to match their magnificent defence of 139 on his same ground in the quarter-final against Birmingham Bears. On this evidence, there was little reason to believe Gloucestershire couldn’t make it three Edgbaston wins in a row by the end of cricket’s longest day.

Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket