Kent vs Essex, Durham vs Middlesex, Middlesex vs Kent - Twenty20 Finals Day, Rose Bowl, Southampton - Saturday 26th July 2008

For the second year in a row, Kent qualified for Twenty20 finals day, which is usually a televisual spectacular - featuring cricket, mascot races, and assorted other nonsense. A long day out, but not helped by the hassle of getting to and from the Rose Bowl. Relying on shuttle buses to and from the station, and train delays on the line from Waterloo, all made for a long, inconvenient journey there and back - and the late finish meant concerns about being able to get back to London before the trains stopped.

On arrival at the Rose Bowl (at about the start of play), there was a most annoying 40 minute queue to get into one of the 2 entrances to the ground - meaning that we missed the first 6 or 7 overs of the first game. For a ground that aspires to be a test cricket ground, they were not very good at all at coping with crowds, and the facilities in general were nothing to write home about. Distinctly underwhelming, and the queue to get in was ridiculous.

The first game was Kent vs Essex, the latter of whom seemed to be supported mainly by people in fancy dress. Kent raced up to 50-0 after the first 5 overs, but stuttered shortly afterwards when they lost both openers in quick succession. The next few batsmen kept the score going nicely - with all of the Kent batsmen getting into double figures and keeping things moving quickly. Bopara did pretty well with the ball for Essex, taking 3 wickets and generally annoying Kent's middle order. Kent's innings yielded 173 - not a bad total, especially on a pitch that didn't look all that friendly to batsmen.

In reply, Essex raced pretty quickly to 78 for no wicket. When the first wicket fell, in came Graham Napier, a player that the Essex fans had been talking about endlessly. So, when he departed quickly afterwards, having scored 3 runs off 5 balls, it was a huge wicket for Kent. His 6 hitting had become legendary this season, but all of it was at Chelmsford, with its short boundaries. He never got going in this innings, and was dismissed by a quite fantastic catch from Rob Key. As the Essex innings progressed, Kent's tightness in the field really started to show through. The score stayed close until the very end, when Yasir Arafat in particular came back to display some fantastically tight bowling, strangling the Essex batsmen. A very well worked win, which put Kent into the final and the Champions League (hopefully).

After this first semi final, we were treated to an hour's break, where the mascot derby happened. The stands emptied except for the kids at the front, and most left in the stands were just wishing that they would get on with the cricket. But, this is all for TV, and so we were treated to the enforced fun of the mascot race. The race itself was a bit fixed, with one group of mascots starting about 20 seconds before the other - so it was no surprise when one of the mascots in the first group won the race. Ridiculous.

The second semi final was Durham vs Middlesex. Durham batted first, and in truth, they never really looked like posting a decent total. Phil Mustard was useful at the beginning, but once he had gone, Collingwood and Chanderpaul in particular were just scoring far, far too slowly. The Durham fans seemed exasperated at the slowness of Chanderpaul in particular, who seemed to be trying to play a sensible test innings. 138 never looked like it would be anywhere near enough, and Middlesex hit the total off with ease, with 8 wickets and 26 balls to spare. Tyron Henderson was the star of their innings, hitting 7 sixes, and generally the Middlesex batsmen hit Steve Harmison's blowing all over the place.

So, the second semi final finished about 15 minutes earlier than scheduled. Annoyingly, instead of bringing everything forward by those 15 minutes, to give people a chance of getting home at a decent hour, they just treated us to 15 minutes more crap instead. In this case, a "mascot dance off". A total waste of time, and something that really left many of the crowd completely bored, waiting for the final. It may be good on TV, but it really does break up the experience if you are in the ground on the day.

So eventually, with lots of fireworks, the teams for the final came out, and the game started. Middlesex batted first, and put up the biggest score of the day so far. Owais Shah was the star of the show, with a fantastic 75. Kent were again quite tight in the field, but their bowling seemed to lack something this time around - or maybe it was just that the Middlesex batsmen were on a mission. Either way, Kent struggled to contain the batsmen, and were left chasing 188 to win.

Things were as close as can be - Denly and Key put on over 80 for the first wicket, before they both fell in quick succession, and Arafat joined them soon afterwards. The rest of the innings was largely left to Justin Kemp and Darren Stevens to carve out a partnership, which kept Kent in the game until the very end. Needing 16 off the last over was always tough but do-able, and the final over started well. Needing 4 from the last 2 balls got the Kent crowd excited, which made the failure to get it a rather heartbreaking anticlimax for a Kent fan. A really exciting final, which was a fantastic advert for Twenty20 - if only that final boundary had been possible.

So, it was left only to fight our way out of the Rose Bowl, onto the shuttle buses, and onto the train back to London. When I got back to London, at just gone midnight, I got a text from the carpark at the Rose Bowl, where people were still waiting to get out - ridiculous. A good day's cricket, at a very average venue, but with too much timewasting around the cricket itself. At the end, we were just one boundary away from an excellent day all round.