Final - Kent Spitfires v Middlesex Crusaders
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2008) |
26 July 2008 |
Middlesex Crusaders 187/6 (20 overs) | v | Kent Spitfires 184/5 (20 overs) |
The Finals Day of the 2008 Twenty20 Cup comprised the semi-finals and final of the 2008 Twenty20 Cup. The matches were held on Saturday 26 July 2008 at the Rose Bowl in Southampton.
Middlesex and Kent qualified for the final at the expense of Durham and Essex respectively. Middlesex eventually emerged as champions by 3 runs, posting a score 187/6 and Kent could only make 184/5 in their 20 overs.
26 July 2008 |
Kent Spitfires 173/7 (20 overs) | v | Essex Eagles 159/8 (20 overs) |
Kent progressed to the final after a 14-run victory in the first semi-final at the Rose Bowl. Having won the toss and electing to bat, openers Joe Denly and captain Robert Key compiled the opening fifty in just five overs. Key was first to fall, clean bowled to Danish Kaneria with the score on 58. Yasir Arafat was next in, and lasted 9 balls and 10 runs before falling to the same bowler. Denly top scored with 36, but he was the third man down, neatly stumped by James Foster. Most of the middle order chipped in with good runs, Martin van Jaarsveld with sixteen, Darren Stevens with 29 and Azhar Mahmood with 24. A late flourish from 2007 Finals Day hat-trick hero Ryan McLaren who faced just three balls for his unbeaten ten, as the Spitfires managed to compile a target of 174.
Essex's opening stand of Ravinder Bopara, who was top bowler in the Kent innings (3-36 off 4 overs) and Mark Pettini started very well, putting on 78 for the first wicket before Bopara was caught off the bowling of James Tredwell. The dangerous Graham Napier followed almost straight away, and the steady rate of wickets to fall continued to the end of the innings. Pettini was the top scorer, hitting a 47-ball 54 but with a lack of support, the Eagles were always going to fall short. Three run outs did not help either as the Eagles' chance at the Stanford Super Series ended.
26 July 2008 |
Durham Dynamos 138/6 (20 overs) | v | Middlesex Crusaders 141/2 (15.4 overs) |
Middlesex put paid to the Dynamos' challenge with a convincing eight wicket win in the afternoon semi-final. Dale Benkenstein had won the toss and followed the earlier game in putting his own team in to bat first. Losing Michael Di Venuto for a third-ball duck did not seem to help matters. It was then left to Paul Collingwood, Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Will Smith to hit the runs. However, as the innings wore on, the conditions began to favour the slower bowlers. This was reflected in the bowling of Shaun Udal and Murali Kartik. In the eight overs that they bowled, only 36 runs were conceded. The Dynamos were thus limited to just 138 off their twenty overs, Chanderpaul top scoring with 48.
The Crusaders got off to a steady start with openers Billy Godleman and Ed Joyce, as they began to eke into the target. They had almost reached halfway by the time the first wicket fell. It was almost like London buses[ according to whom? ] in that Middlesex went from 65 without loss, to 65 for 2 with the loss of Godleman for 20 and Joyce for 41. But no more wickets were to fall as an unbeaten partnership of 76 between Owais Shah and Tyron Henderson allowed the Crusaders to advance. Henderson kept much of the strike, hitting a quite superb unbeaten 59 off only 21 balls, including 7 sixes, of which 3 came in the one over. This earned him man of the match, and earned the Crusaders a spot in the Twenty20 Champions League.
| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2008) |
26 July 2008 |
Middlesex Crusaders 187/6 (20 overs) | v | Kent Spitfires 184/5 (20 overs) |
Cambridge UCCE had a good start to their 2005 first-class season, setting Essex a target of 270 to win, after declaring in their second innings on 255 for 4. They took 6 wickets in defending the total, although they lost to the county in the end. They then narrowly lost to Warwickshire before beating Yorkshire in their last game of the season against a first-class county. They also played two matches as Cambridge University against Oxford University, winning the one-day game, but falling by an innings and 213 runs in their final first-class game of the season.
Essex County Cricket Club played their cricket during the 2005 season in Division Two of the County Championship and Division One of the Sunday League. They started the season 8–1 to win the Second Division Title, and were second in the Championship table at 9 May, but five matches without a win following that sent them down to fifth place at the Twenty20 break in June. They only intermittently broke into the top three after the Twenty20 break, and when they did their opponents behind them usually had a game in hand. They finished fifth, 15.5 points behind the promotion spot, and with 36 bowling points they picked up the fewest in the entire Division Two. In the National League, however, they only lost once in sixteen games – against Gloucestershire Gladiators in August – and won the League on 28 August with three games to play. In the C&G Trophy, they went out to Lancashire at the second round stage, while they finished fifth in the group stage of the Twenty20 Cup, two points off a guaranteed quarter-final spot.
Glamorgan County Cricket Club started their 2005 season as defending totesport League champions, but the 2005 season ended without a trophy – instead, they suffered relegation in the first-class form. They played their first-class cricket in the First Division of the County Championship. They started the Championship season at 25–1 to win, and favourites to be relegated – which they eventually were, winning one of sixteen games in the Championship season to finish bottom – nearly 100 points behind the first team to avoid relegation. By the end of August, they had confirmed relegation with three games remaining. In the National League, they hovered around mid-table for most of the season, before a run of three unbeaten games at the end of August sent them out of the relegation zone, and they finished the season in fourth place. In the C&G Trophy, they were knocked out at the second round stage by eventual champions Hampshire, while the Twenty20 campaign saw them finish bottom of their group with two wins from eight matches.
Northamptonshire County Cricket Club in 2005 are playing their cricket in Division Two of the County Championship and Division One of the totesport League. They started the season at 12–1 to win the Division Two title. During the off season 9 players left.
Sussex County Cricket Club played in Division One of the County Championship and Division Two of the Totesport League in 2005. The 2003 County Champions started the season at 6–1 to retake the title.
Kent County Cricket Club in 2005 played their cricket in Division One of the County Championship and Division Two of the totesport League. They started the Championship at 11–2 to win it, behind Surrey and Warwickshire. Their first first-class game, however, was against the students of Cardiff UCCE. They fell to 104 for 6 before rain prevented any further play. They had little luck in their first Sunday League game, against Derbyshire, which was also abandoned through rain.
Lancashire County Cricket Club played cricket in Division Two of the County Championship and Division One of the totesport League in the 2005 English cricket season. After their shock relegation last season, they were 11–10 favourites to win the Second Division of the Championship, and they managed this with seven wins and a total of 212 points. They also survived in Division One of the National League, beating Worcestershire Royals on the last matchday to stay up. Lancashire also qualified for the final of the Twenty20 Cup, but lost by seven wickets to Somerset Sabres.
Worcestershire County Cricket Club in 2005 played their County Championship games in Division Two and their Totesport League games in Division One. Under their new captain, Vikram Solanki, they were tipped to go straight back up to the top flight of the County Championship and started the season 9–2 second favourites to end up as Division Two champions.
Derbyshire County Cricket Club in 2005 was the cricket season when the English club Derbyshire had been playing for one hundred and thirty-five years. They reached the semi-final in the Cheltenham and Gloucester Trophy. In the County Championship, they finished ninth in the second division and in the National League, they finished sixth in the second division. They were eliminated at group level in the North section of the Twenty20 Cup.
Hampshire County Cricket Club played their cricket in Division One of both the County Championship and the National League in 2005. They started the season at 10–1 odds to win the Championship. With the first eleven including seven players who had represented their country at Test or ODIs at the end of the season, they nearly won the County Championship, beating eventual County Champions Nottinghamshire both home and away, and ended with the same win–loss record as Notts. However, with two bonus points less and half a point deducted due to a slow over rate against Sussex in July, they finished behind – something that had been apparent the week before the Championship ended. They did win the C&G Trophy, defeating three League Division Two sides and a minor county on the way to the title, in addition to Glamorgan from Division One, but their other limited-overs forays ended in relegation and elimination due to head-to-head results in the Twenty20 Cup.
Surrey County Cricket Club in 2005 are playing their cricket in the First Division of the County Championship and the Second Division of the totesport League. The 2004 season was a disappointment for Surrey under the captaincy of Jonathan Batty, who was replaced by Mark Butcher for 2005. However, Butcher was out for most of the season due to an injury to his left wrist, leaving Mark Ramprakash as interim captain – one of the few, maybe the only, man to captain both Surrey and their arch-rivals Middlesex.
Middlesex County Cricket Club in 2005 played their cricket in Division One of the County Championship and Division Two of the totesport League. They started the season at 9–1 to win the County Championship title.
Twenty20 cricket is played over 20 overs according to normal limited-over rules, the one exception being the rule for "timed out", where the time by which an incoming batsman must be at the crease ready to receive his first ball is reduced to 90 seconds after the outgoing batsman has been dismissed. This amendment to the rules helps speed up the game. Additionally, boundary ropes tend to be shorter in Twenty20 cricket than for normal limited over games.
Billy Ashley Godleman is an English first-class cricketer who plays for Derbyshire.
Ravinder Singh Bopara is an English cricketer who plays for Sussex County Cricket Club in one day cricket and has represented the England national team. Originally a top-order batsman, his developing medium pace bowling has made him a batting all rounder in the one day game. Bopara has also played for Karachi Kings in the Pakistan Super League, Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League, Sydney Sixers in the Big Bash League and Chittagong Vikings in the Bangladesh Premier League. Bopara was a member of the England team that won the 2010 ICC World Twenty20.
Paul Andrew Nixon is an English cricket coach and former professional cricketer who played for Leicestershire, England, England A, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and Kent. He is a wicket-keeper and left-handed batsman. Nixon played in twenty international matches for the England cricket team, all within a four-month spell in 2007.
The 2008 Twenty20 Cup was the sixth running of the tournament, and saw Middlesex Crusaders winning the tournament after a thrilling climax to the final against the reigning champions, the Kent Spitfires. The tournament began on 11 June 2008 before culminating in Finals Day, held at The Rose Bowl, Southampton on 26 July. As always, the eighteen county sides were split into three groups of six, depending on the location of the counties in the United Kingdom.
The knockout stage of the 2008 Twenty20 Cup comprises the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final of the 2008 Twenty20 Cup. The top two teams from each of the three groups progressed to the quarter-finals along with the two best placed third teams. The teams were redrawn and played one knockout match to decide the semi-finalists. Finals day was held on 26 July 2008.
The 2005 Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy was the 4th Cheltenham & Gloucester Trophy, an English county cricket tournament, held between 3 May and 3 September 2005. The competition was contested by all 18 first-class counties, as well as 10 minor counties and the national teams of Scotland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark, to make up a full 32-team tournament. The final was won by the Hampshire Hawks, who beat the Warwickshire Bears by 18 runs at Lord's on 3 September 2005.