1. Business or pleasure?
At this time of year, a tension arises between the business of sport and the integrity of competitions. The Hundred finishes and players suddenly become available just as the One-Day Cup is drawing to its conclusion. Counties, as businesses, are free to contract whoever they like. Players, making their living, are free to resume their county careers, having been elsewhere for the last four weeks.
But sport is not simply business – not even at the very top level – and cricket could improve its rules. Counties could, voluntarily or via the playing conditions of the competition, bar players being from parachuted in once they become free from other obligations. Such a rule might be challenged as a restriction of trade, but it’s rooted in sporting integrity, the longstanding idea that clubs should use a largely fixed set of resources within a specific tournament. In football, new signings are cup-tied for this reason.
A business will always seek to gain competitive advantage; a club should always prioritise the sporting principles and the interests of its members. Whose side are you on? Bearing in mind key squad changes between the end of the group stage and the beginning of the knockouts, how did the eliminators and semi-finals turn out?
2. Orr shows his mettle
Hampshire traveled to a Middlesex outground rather than playing their eliminator on one of their own, but they still ran out comfortable winners and booked their place in the semi-finals.
The match at Radlett added a chapter to one of the more heartwarming stories of the summer, as Ali Orr continued his rehabilitation as an exciting young player with a match-winning performance. He had made just one appearance in the Blast and two in the Championship before a run in the One-Day Cup that has helped him to find his feet again after injury setbacks.
At 95 for five after Henry Brookes had shot out the top order, Orr found a partner in the experienced all-rounder James Fuller, and Hampshire dragged themselves up to set a low, if defendable, target of 230. Once Liam Dawson, enjoying his first long bowl since the fourth Test, had disposed of Middlesex’s two best batters, Sam Robson and Ryan Higgins, and captain Ben Geddes, there was no way back for the home side.
If your team has a batter who scores 108 in a match in which the next best score is 48, you’re unlikely to lose – and Orr’s side didn’t. Hampshire’s win set up a semi-final against Yorkshire.
3. Too few to challenge the Rews
In the other eliminator between Somerset and Gloucestershire at Taunton, there was a reluctant welcome for old friends as Duckworth, Lewis and Stern were padded up and ready for action, having been unemployed for most of this sunny summer.
Gloucestershire, perhaps with one eye on the forecast, decided to put runs on the board, a plan derailed after James Bracey and Cameron Bancroft were both gone within 14 overs and, with Jake Ball and Tom Lammonby leading the seam effort and Jack Leach parsimonious with his spin, the batting never sparked.
A target of 156 was never enough and it was still not enough after DLS, following a rain break, had amended it to 149 off 45 overs. All that needs is a couple of scores and it was no surprise that the Rew brothers delivered them. They are so pivotal at No 4 and No 5 that you have to remind yourself that James is 21 and Thomas 17. They are evidently the future of Somerset; the question is whether they are also the future of England.
4. Pears’ form ripens
Trump cards are useful in all formats of the game, but perhaps most of all in 50-overs cricket. A gun batter can get a really big one and a go-to bowler can use the new ball, come back when a wicket is needed to break a partnership and then take death hitting out of the equation by knocking a couple over late on.
Khurram Shahzad, the Pakistani Test bowler, had not pulled up any trees for Worcestershire in 2025, but he was steadily improving so it was no real surprise that he came good when needed, in the semi-final against Somerset.
A solid rather than spectacular home batting order delivered a solid rather than spectacular score of 275 for nine off their full allocation, Jack Leach again keeping it very tight. Somerset knew that a good start is key to a middling chase like that, relaxing the batters to come and allowing wickets to fall without triggering a crisis. The trouble is that Jake Libby knew that too.
He turned to his spearhead and Shahzad took four wickets in his opening spell leaving far too much for Somerset’s captain, James Rew, to do and the game went away from the visitors in fewer than 30 overs.
Worcestershire will play their first one-day final since 2019 and I suspect their fans will arrive at Trent Bridge en masse come 20 September.
5. Dawson and Currie too hot for Tykes
Whether you like it or not (and I don’t) Hampshire’s semi-final win over Yorkshire at Scarborough turned on a stellar performance from Liam Dawson, last seen playing for London Spirit in the Hundred.
At 78 for four in the 20th over, the visitors were in a hole, but Dawson found a partner in 17-year-old Ben Mayes (89 for the fifth wicket) and then Scotland all-rounder Scott Currie, who notched his first white-ball half-century in a stand of 136 for the sixth wicket. Dawson was out off the second last ball for a List A career-high 142.
The 32nd over of the chase proved the turning point. Yorkshire started it with Imam-ul-Haq past 100 with power to add in the company of a resurgent Finlay Bean. They finished it with George Hill and Harry Duke at the crease with a rebuilding job on their hands that was to prove too much. The batting heroes, Dawson and Currie, picked up a couple of wickets each in a decent match for the all-rounders.
6. Make a complicated game simple
Cricket is a complex game. Its structure should simplify it, not complicate it still further. That the proposals for 2026 need an article like this one to explain them is reason enough to throw them all out and start again.
