2010 Twenty20 Cup Final

2010 Twenty20 Cup Final

The 2010 Twenty20 Cup Final was a 20 overs-per-side cricket match played on 14 August 2010 at the Rose Bowl in Southampton. It was the eighth final of the competition, which replaced the 50-over Benson & Hedges Cup in 2003. Hampshire won the tournament having lost fewer wickets than Somerset, who reached their target with three overs to spare. The match was broadcast live on Sky Sports.

About 2010 Twenty20 Cup Final in brief

Summary 2010 Twenty20 Cup FinalThe 2010 Twenty20 Cup Final was a 20 overs-per-side cricket match played on 14 August 2010 at the Rose Bowl in Southampton. Hampshire were making their first appearance in a Twenty20 final, while Somerset were playing in their third, and their second in successive years. It was the eighth final of the competition, which replaced the 50-over Benson & Hedges Cup in 2003. In 2010 the life insurance company Friends Provident took over as sponsors of the tournament, which became known as the Friends Providents t20. Hampshire won the tournament having lost fewer wickets than Somerset, who reached their target with three overs to spare. The match was broadcast live on Sky Sports. Kevin Pietersen did not take part in the final as he had announced his intention to leave the club at the end of the previous season. Hampshire’s first-team players were Dimitri Mascarenhas, Nic Pothas, Kabir Ali and Lumbir Kabir, who took the lads’ place on the Twenty20 squad. The final was won by James Vince, who scored 66 runs to help his side to victory with one ball remaining. Somerset won the competition by beating Warwickshire in the quarter-final, while Hampshire were beaten by Northamptonshire in their semi-final. The tournament was one of three tournaments played by first-class county cricket teams, in what the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack editor Scyld Berry described as the worst fixture list since 1919. The sixteen group-stage fixtures per team were an increase from the ten played the previous year, with the top four from each group progressing to the quarter finals.

The competition culminated on ‘Finals’ Day’, during which both semi-finals and the final were played, at the same ground, to determine the tournament champions. The matches were played the day before or after a four-day County Championship match. Hampshire finished fourth in the group stage having won eight and lost eight of their matches, with Somerset finishing top of the group with eleven wins from 16 matches. Somerset’s spin bowlers, Murali Kartik and Arul Suppiah both bowled economically to help restrict NorthamPTonshire to 112 runs, and secured a place in the competition’s showcase Finals’ Day. Hampshire, who played under the moniker “Hampshire Royals” in one-day cricket, had never reached the final of the competition before, although they had won the 2009 Friendsprovident Trophy, a 50-overs tournament. Somerset were rated as among the favourites at the outset of the tournament, given odds of 8–1 by The Guardian, and had been losing finalists in 2009. They were also rated as one of the favourites, with odds of 15–2 at the start of the tournament The Guardian described them as being one of the favourites, despite their historic lack of success in Twenty20 cricket. The England and Wales Cricket Board chose not to include the four lads who took part in the finals, due to the injuries of Michael Kabir and Michael Lumb.