A Look Back: T20 Final 2012

Hampshire Hawks qualified for the knockout stages of this year's Vitality Blast competition in an extraordinary fashion - winning their final five group stage fixtures before sealing a come-from-behind victory at Trent Bridge against Notts Outlaws in the quarter-final.

And with Vitality Blast Finals Day approaching we've taken a look back at the T20 Final of 2012 - at Cardiff - where Hampshire secured the trophy for the second time in three years. Read about the 2012 Final below - courtesy of Hampshire Cricket's Historian Dave Allen, and check out a highlights video too.

Nowadays T20 Finals are always at Edgbaston which is certainly geographically fair but in the early years the day moved around, including twice at the Rose Bowl. In 2012 it crossed the Severn Bridge to Cardiff and Hampshire went to their second Finals Day.

In 2010, Hampshire won the Final, beating Somerset, in 2011 they went out at the semi-final stage to the same opponents in the first ‘super’ over, and in 2012 they made it a Finals Day ‘hat-trick’ beating the same opponents in the semi-final after ‘Dimi’ Mascarenhas restricted them to 125-6 with 2-11 in his four overs (Ervine 2-22). Carberry, Katich and Ervine all contributed thirties and the latter also took 2-22.

This was the second semi-final, after Yorkshire had hammered Sussex by 36 runs, so Hampshire met the northern county – both second division teams in those days - and batting first, lost Carberry early but Adams (43) and Vince (36) took them to 70 and 20s from Ervine and Katich left them with a reasonable total of 150-6.

The Cardiff pitch seemed to favour the ‘pace-off’ bowlers as Mascarenhas, Briggs and Dawson reduced Yorkshire to 47-4, then with his score on just seven, South African David Miller appeared to be caught by Neil McKenzie. The umpires consulted the TV screen, Miller was given not out and he proceeded to smash 72 not out in 46 balls which won him the Man-of-the-Match award and took Yorkshire close. With the overs ticking by, the two young left-armers Chris Wood (3-26) and Danny Briggs (1-27) bowled superbly, Miller lost the strike and Hampshire won by 10 runs for their second and last triumph – to date.

Later that season of course, Hampshire went to Lord’s and beat Warwickshire on the last ball in the CB40 to complete their first, and only, double to date. Perhaps they can repeat that in 2021?

Nine men played in both Finals that year: Michael Carberry, Jimmy Adams, James Vince, Neil McKenzie, Sean Ervine, Simon Katich, Liam Dawson, Chris Wood, and Michael Bates.

Adams, Vince, Ervine, Carberry, Wood and Bates played in all three Finals 2010-2012 – Dominic Cork was captain in 2010.

‘Dimi’ Mascarenhas who captained at Cardiff in 2012 was not fit at Lord’s while Danny Briggs was held back by England. In their places, Kabir Ali, and David Griffiths played in the longer final, captained by Jimmy Adams.