|
It was the 9th victory of 10 matches on Sunday (July 03) for Hampshire Hawks paving the path to the quarterfinal of Vitality Blast of England and Wales Cricket Board. The team defeated Sussex Sharks by five wickets at Hove and Vince emerged the best in batting with 65 runs in 42 balls while James Fuller played his part pocketing 19 in 7 balls and not out. It was the ninth match for Sussex Sharks with eight defeats. It was surprising that Hampshire Hawks failed to make a comfortable victory even being one of the best performers in the tournament. Ben McDermott and James Vince (c) together scored 86 for the first wicket. The striking rate of the duo was 10 per over. Tom Prest and Joe Weatherley scored 19 and 14 runs respectively Ross Whiteley was not out and played 11 balls to make 16 runs. Toby Albert could not stay on the pitch long and played just 5 balls making 3 runs. Chris Wood, Brad Wheal and Mason Crane grabbed two wickets each while James Fuller and Tom Prest had to settle down with one each. Hampshire Hawks and Sussex Sharks are in the Southern Division of the tournament format. The other is Northern Division. Each division consists of nine teams, the first-class counties. Sometimes it is played in three geographical divisions - Northern Division, Central Division and Southern Division. The Vitality Blast, initially named T20 Blast, was organized by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003. It is a professional T20 cricket tournament and is said to be the first such professional league in the world. It is considered a top-level T20 competition in England and Wales. Between 2003 and 2009, the tournament was named the Friends Provident T20 due to sponsor reasons. The name was revised as Friends Life T20 in 2010 and continued until 2013 for the same reason. Later, Natwest became the title sponsored and the league was named Natwest T20 Blast. Since 2018, it is called Vitality Blast due to its title sponsor by Vitality insurance company. Surrey Lions won the first-year title and Brad Hodge from Leicestershire scored the most runs (301) in the tournament. Adam Hollioake from Surrey grabbed the title of taking most wickets (18). Kent Spitfires won the last edition by 25 runs defeating Somerset. Josh Inglis from Leicestershire Foxes scored the most runs (531) while most wickets (26) were pocketed by Naveen-ul-Haq from the same team. The semi-finals and final matches of this year are scheduled to be played on July 16.at Edgbaston Cricket Ground in Birmingham. The tournament started on May 25 and the opening match was played between Worcestershire Rapids and Yorkshire Vikings. Each team plays 14 group-stage matches and half of it are on home ground. The quarter-final match for Hampshire Hawks is on July 8 against Birmingham Bears. Vitality Blast T20
Related Articles -
cricket, cricketscore, livecricket,
| 
