• Rapids chase down Sharks’ 157 with nine balls to spare
• Cox smashes winning runs and finishes 46 not out
Given the day out had begun almost eight hours previously, it was a show of restraint that we were a full 15 minutes into the final before we saw the first conga line. A similarly disciplined Worcestershire bowling performance meant the Finals Day debutants were crowned champions of the Vitality Blast, chasing down Sussex’s 157 with nine balls to spare.
Edgbaston will be full for a Finals Day that promises to show some of the game’s less heralded sides at their Twenty20 best
Surrey have already been crowned county champions, England have wrapped up a Test series victory over India and the football season is back in full flow. Now, three weeks after the Vitality Blast’s quarter-finals, Somerset, the Worcestershire Rapids, Lancashire Lightning and the Sussex Sharks descend on Birmingham on Saturday for Finals Day.
• Hampshire 330-7; Kent 269. Hampshire win by 61 runs
• Sam Billings scores 75 off 60 but four run-outs cost Kent
Forty years of hurt, and Kent will still be dreaming. While England’s footballers look to rectify 52 years without a trophy, Kent’s last one-day triumph was in 1978 and the wait continues. A Rilee Rossouw century, four run-outs and an unbeaten 75 by their former captain Sam Northeast denied Kent a title once more, with Hampshire ultimately easing to a 61-run victory.
• First Lord’s final between the sides since 1992
• James Vince and Heino Kuhn have been prolific run-scorers
The human interest stories for Saturday’s Royal London One-Day Cup final are varied and many. Kent’s 42-year-old Darren Stevens will be negotiating the Lord’s slope in what is his 21st year of first-class cricket. The former Kent captain Sam Northeast, a Hampshire winter signing, will be going up against his restless successor Sam Billings, who, in a quiet season, has a point to prove.
• Australia 277-9; Sussex 220 – Australia win by 57 runs
• Marcus Stoinis’s steady hundred sets up victory
There are some sporting spectacles where crowds are attracted more for the occasion than the sport itself. This one-day tour match between Sussex and Australia, innocuous enough when the fixture was first scheduled, was one such occasion. Sometimes they are drawn to the presence of a great player, or one on the precipice of a major landmark. This match, however, was notable not for who was here but who was not.
The Australian surfer’s achievement this year remains a case of despite, not because, of the support female athletes receive, but her success may herald a wave of change
Gone are the days when a footy-loving girl was told to hang up her shorts for a netball skirt. But that doesn’t mean one sport is better than another
Isabelle Westbury 