Hampshire 184 (Munro 63, Fuller 6-28) beat Middlesex 163 for 9 (Munro 2-20) by 21 runs
Scorecard
Hampshire cruised to the first win of their T20 Blast campaign by putting struggling Middlesex to the sword at the Ageas Bowl thanks to Colin Munro’s all-round heroics.
Munro’s 40-ball 63 put Hampshire on course for a score well over 200, before an unlikely six-wicket haul from James Fuller – the best figures by a Middlesex bowler in the history of the Blast – pegged them back to 184 all out.
After starting well, Middlesex lost their way in the middle overs, and Dwayne Bravo’s brief onslaught aside, Hampshire never looked in any trouble, as they eventually secured a 21-run victory.
Munro added two wickets and a run out to his fiery innings, and Hampshire will hope his new-found form continues before he departs for the Caribbean Premier League at the end of the month.
“I thought we left 15-20 runs out there,” Munro said. “t was a good surface, and we just lost a couple of key wickets in the middle there.
“Things haven’t gone our way, but as long as you try to train the same way and prepare the same way, you’ll get results down the track, and tonight it was good to get on the board at last. We’ve still got some left in the tank, but there’s a lot of positives to take into tomorrow’s game.”
After he won the toss and chose to bat, the early signs were that this would be James Vince’s night. He hit the first three balls of the innings – bowled by Steven Finn – for four, with a punch through cover point followed by two whips to the midwicket boundary.
Two more sublime strokes for four followed off Paul Stirling’s over, and Vince was motoring. Vince’s contribution to Hampshire’s T20 success since his debut in 2010 has been immense. In that time, Hampshire have reached Finals Day seven times in eight seasons; it will not come as a surprise that the only exception in that run, in 2016, saw Vince bat only four times due to international selection.
But Vince’s reputation precedes him. As is so often the case, he got in, looked a million dollars, and got out, as he flicked Finn to deep square leg on 23. Vince has reached twenty 41 times since the start of the 2015 Blast, but has only turned twelve of those starts into fifties. It is not a statistic that will trouble him – he was on the list of the top three Blast run-scorers in two of the past three seasons – but one that will do little to convince England that he has grit as well as grace.
Hampshire’s total was underpinned by Colin Munro and Rilee Rossouw’s 72-run third-wicket stand in 7.3 overs. They knocked the ball about patiently in the middle overs, while thumping the bad balls – of which there were plenty – to the fence as Hampshire reached 122-2 after 12 overs.
Out of desperation, Dawid Malan threw the ball to James Fuller; and out of nowhere, Hampshire lost their heads. Rossouw was caught at deep cover, before Tom Alsop chopped on at the end of his first over, and Munro skied a catch to Max Holden in his second. His third saw Dawson and Berg miscue to long-on and nick off respectively, before he had Lewis McManus caught in the deep in his final over. Fuller’s eventual 6-28 was the second-most expensive six-wicket haul in T20 history, and surely among the most forgettable, but it pegged Hampshire back as they were bowled out for 184.
In truth, Fuller’s haul masked a shoddy Middlesex effort with the ball. Admittedly, the schedule has not been kind to them: they went 11 days without a game before last night, and Eoin Morgan and Malan’s absences due to England and Lions selection respectively have meant they are yet to have the same captain for consecutive fixtures. But it was telling that Malan and Stirling spent a minute or more discussing fields in the game’s second over; bowlers can hardly expect to succeed when strategies are being created on the spot, and Middlesex’s supporters may well start to question what Daniel Vettori has actually done in his role as T20 coach.
Predictably, spin proved key in the run chase. Holden’s chancy start meant Middlesex were 45-1 after five overs, but in the final over of the Powerplay, he ran himself out after Malan was caught reverse-sweeping. With the fielding restrictions lifted, Munro had Morgan caught in the deep with his skiddy medium pace as he and Dawson put the breaks on. No side has a slower scoring rate against spin in the Blast than Middlesex and it showed, with boundaries suddenly at a premium.
Just as he was set to attack, John Simpson skied a catch to Vince on the edge of the ring, while Dwayne Bravo started to play his shots. He launched Dawson for two sixes down the ground, but short of any real support, he had to keep swinging, and his miscued heave off Munro was well caught by the bowler running round to square leg. With Bravo gone, Hampshire’s victory was in little doubt, and a late rally from Middlesex’s tail could not hide their shortcomings.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo