Somerset flatten competition as Blast battles to stand out from crowd

How do you like them apples? Somerset's cider boys finally ended their Finals Day hoodoo to cap one of the most-dominant seasons in the history of T20 (no team anywhere in the world has won as many as 15 games in a single campaign), providing a feelgood story in the middle of another English summer in which discontent about the schedule is impossible to ignore - even after 12 hours of getting bladdered in the Hollies Stand.

The T20 showpiece remains one of the domestic game's great days out. Where else can you see three thrillingly contested 20-over fixtures and and a conga in the crowd led by a fancy-dress giraffe? Saturday at a packed Edgbaston felt like a triumph of elemental proportions, too, as the groundstaff - who began their day at 3.30am following hours of heavy rainfall in Birmingham - kept the show on the road even as stormy weather repeatedly threatened to trigger the use of a reserve day for only the second time in the competition's 20-year history.

T20 is a fickle game, as more than one participant from the four teams involved reflected - except Somerset's unstoppable form suggested quite the opposite. They were the first team ever to win 12 games (out of 14) in the Blast group stage, and then in all three of their knockout encounters successfully fought back from losing positions.

Key to their success was a cutting edge with the ball. Somerset had the competition's two leading wicket-takers - Matt Henry overtaking Ben Green with his four-for in the final to finish on 31 for the season - and claimed an almost unbelievable 151 out of 170 wickets going. Only one team in the South Group avoided being bowled out by Somerset this summer and that was Sussex, who played them once (and made 183 for 8 in a five-wicket defeat). Essex were on the receiving end three times.

With the bat, the big guns at the top of the order are all England candidates of varying merit - Tom Banton, Will Smeed and Tom Kohler-Cadmore scored almost 1500 runs between them at strike rates of 150-175 - and yet their hero on Saturday was journeyman pro Sean Dickson, whose 53 in the final was the joint top-score of his nine-year T20 career.

Somerset's head coach, Jason Kerr, has been involved with the club since 2006, a time that encompassed seven fruitless trips to Finals Day. He said afterwards that his overriding emotion had been one of relief.

"I genuinely believe you get what you deserve, and I genuinely believe we've been the best team in the competition this year," he said. "But we had to go out there and demonstrate that, and that's what we managed to go out there and do.

"We've been building as a side. We've been to Finals Day for the last three years, and last year we didn't turn up at all. We didn't do ourselves justice, so I was adamant that we were going to do that this year. I think Lewis [Gregory] has led the group immensely well, but it really has been a team performance throughout the campaign, and that has shown with glory today."

Gregory, Somerset's captain, called the experience "pretty damned good". This was not, however, the first time he had held a T20 trophy aloft, despite having spent his entire county career at Taunton. That is because Gregory is also the captain of Trent Rockets, the reigning champions in the men's Hundred, whose campaign to defend their trophy gets underway in just over a fortnight's time. Another T20 showpiece, anyone?

When the counties voted to create a second, city-based short-format competition back in 2017, the inevitable result was the Blast having to live in the shadow of a shinier, better-resourced competitor. But the global T20 landscape has shifted a huge amount in the intervening period and both English tournaments now find themselves hemmed in on all sides - by the behemoth that is the IPL at the start of the season and an increasing number of competitors in the middle of the year: the CPL, Major League Cricket and the Global T20 Canada.

Surrey, defeated by Somerset in the second semi-final, felt the knock-on effects directly in the farrago of Sunil Narine's non-appearance - despite the club believing they had an agreement for the West Indian spinner to fly back for Finals Day between his commitments to LA Knight Riders in the MLC. And speaking on BBC radio at Edgbaston, Glenn Maxwell, the Australia allrounder who joined Birmingham Bears straight from the IPL but recently opted to pull out of a planned stint at the Hundred for workload reasons, underlined the difficulties facing the ECB and the county game.

"I think now the Major League Cricket tournament's come in, that's going to affect the Blast really badly," he said. "When you've got an opportunity to go over to America for two weeks, compared to 14 games here with a stressful schedule where you're travelling all over the place. There was one week where we played on a Tuesday in Durham, Thursday in Leeds and then Friday here in Birmingham - that's three games in four days with a day's travel in between.

"It can really drain you, your body and mentally. I found that very tough this year and I think with the Major League being a lot more attractive, bigger crowds, I think there's eight [six] overseas players per team, the excitement of a new tournament, it's only two weeks long. Less of a burden on your schedule. I think it's going a lot more attractive to some overseas players."

Maxwell also pointed out the absurdity of England running its entire 50-over competition in parallel with the Hundred, with the result that the some of the country's best white-ball players have barely played any List A cricket (a format which, unlike the Hundred, is played internationally and features a World Cup every four years). "I would say it does the same thing as T20 cricket but it's not relevant to the international schedule," he concluded.

That is almost a whole other conversation, none of which really helps the Blast. There are signs that the competition has bounced back a little post-Covid, with the ECB reporting a 15% increase in advanced tickets sales and overall attendance expected to be in the region of 800,000 - similar to 2022 but down on the pre-pandemic high of 920,000. Edgbaston can still throw a party like no other in T20 but the logistics are more challenging than ever.

Rumours about the Hundred being wound up have persisted, despite public denials from the ECB management and a broadcasting deal that runs until 2028. And even then, as Maxwell alluded to, an 18-team system is hardly the optimum starting point for a competition to achieve cut-through in an ever-more crowded market.

Somerset's success this weekend, after an 18-year gap since winning the third edition of the Twenty20 Cup in 2005, was a story that will resonate with many beyond the heartlands of county cricket. But whether the Blast will look the same in 18 months - let alone 18 years - is at the crux of the challenge for those running the game.