1. Holders claw their way through
Northamptonshire booked a home quarter-final long ago so interest in the Central and West Group focused on whether Somerset could engineer the chance to defend their title in the knockout stages.
So they might have expected Northants to be doing cricket’s equivalent of wearing their flip-flops – perhaps playing Birmingham’s own Black Sabbath playlists? – when they arrived at Taunton, the result mattering rather more to the home side than to the visitors.
The job still needed to be done and, with a rocket start to the chase from Will Smeed and Thomas Rew, 163 was chased down with five overs in hand. Easy pickings – so far.
The last match in a very tight group was again at Taunton and, though Worcestershire were in decent form, the momentum was with the home team as it can only be at a few grounds in this country. Smeed and Rew again demolished the powerplay, but Worcestershire were right in the chase until Jack Leach and Daniel Sams induced a middle-order collapse and Somerset were through to face Yorkshire at Headingley.
2. Yorkshiremen cap off successful group stage
How much did Yorkshire want that home quarter-final? Well, they fielded the big guns against Nottinghamshire, who had already won the group. Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow and Moeen Ali have 972 England caps between them, but it was Adam Lyth who again led the way with the bat, the visitors set 194 for a win they didn’t really need.
Notts lost wickets at bad times – another way of saying that they couldn’t find a partnership – as six Tykes chipped in with at least one wicket. It will be quite a night in Leeds on Wednesday, with the 4.30pm start giving fans time to cheer on their cricket teams before coming together to cheer on their footballers.
3. Essex boys are sharp thinkers
For as long as I can remember, Essex have had more nous than any other team in the county game.
Simon Harmer’s side needed to beat Hampshire and Surrey – quarter-finalists themselves – to squeeze into the knockouts as one of the best two third-placed teams. Thanks to one of their savviest cricketers, all-rounder Matt Critchley, they did exactly that. Their reward is a quarter-final against Hampshire at the Rose Bowl.
Critchley will be hoping to repeat the performance he delivered against Hants in the penultimate group game, in which he punched the heart out of their middle order with 4-16. His leg breaks repeated the feat against Surrey at the Oval, Essex bowling out the home side for 123, Critchley bagging three scalps.
With the heatwave to continue, Harmer and Critchley will probably bowl their full allocations of spin and that’s quite the weapon to have in the quiver.
4. Batter of the Blast: Aneurin Donald
It is a surprise to read that Aneurin Donald is still in his 20s and only at the midpoint of his career. He will be hoping for a better second half, as he has been unduly hampered by injury and losses of form over the last decade or so.
What has never been in doubt is his talent. The Derbyshire captain could not quite get them out of the group stage, but nearly 500 runs at a strike rate of 230 including 37 sixes, is an extraordinary effort.
5. Bowler of the Blast: Hasan Ali
If you are an overseas bowler with a new ball in hand, your job is to take wickets. And nobody has delivered that brief better than Hasan Ali, the experienced Pakistani international pacer who keeps getting batters out. His 25 wickets have propelled Yorkshire into the last eight and no batter will relish the prospect of the wily seamer skidding the ball on to the pads in knockout cricket.
6. Teething problems for the new format
The Blast has been re-jigged this year. Teams have played 12 group matches instead of 14, with the quarter-finals and then Finals Day coming hard on the heels of the group phase. It’s hard to make an argument against that compression from the perspective of fans, players or administrators, with the counties’ cash cow competition to sell.
The two matches teams have played against opponents from other groups been less successful in terms of the clarity of the three tables and in balancing jeopardy. While it allowed counties to be matched for the first time in many years – and, no doubt, friendships to be renewed in rivalry on away grounds – the groups became very skewed.
All six counties in the Central and West won at least half their matches, while the North and the South (comprising many teams that had lost their cross-group matches) saw half their members out of the running far too early.
As it happened, the best eight sides probably did come through, but some fine tuning is required to ensure that more counties have something to play for in more matches come 2027.
7. The last eight
There will be four quarter-finals on Wednesday: Hampshire v Essex, Nottinghamshire v Surrey, Yorkshire v Somerset and Northampton v Gloucestershire, with the semi-finals and final played at Edgbaston on Saturday.
Predicting T20 matches is a fool’s errand, so I shall merely note that the bookies have Surrey as marginal favourites and Gloucestershire as outsiders. For me, Essex looks the value bet. It is interesting to note that only half of the quarter-finalists host a Hundred franchise. Money talks in domestic cricket, but not as loudly as it does in some other sports. At least not yet.
