Vitality T20 Blast Finals Day Odds: Three picks for the show-piece finals at Edgbaston
We're into the Finals Day in the Vitality Blast at Edgbaston on Saturday and we've asked our resident cricketer Adam Roberts to preview the big day and give us his best three bets for the occasion.
Vitality T20 Blast Finals Day Tips
We have our final four and it's Lancashire who are the slight favourites with the bookmakers on the outright. Although, we're pretty much looking at a four-way pick'em scenario with all four clubs around a 25% chance of winning the whole thing. The ECB have done a lot right recently but scheduling this Final's Day slap bang in the middle of an England white-ball series isn't their finest move. Forget the Hundred, this should be the summer show-piece of domestic white ball cricket and all the big England stars should be playing. Imagine how good these semi-finals would look with the likes of Jos Buttler, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow playing?
Edgbaston should provide a setting finale to a season long Blast campaign and it will be raucous come the final, with some fans having been there for around 9 hours come the finale. Onto the action....
This War of the Roses should be an absolute stonker. Even without the missing England stars. Harry Brook for Yorkshire and Phil Salt and Matt Parkinson for Lancashire, have been released for Finals Day and will be keen to impress, having been underused by the national team in the recent white-ball series against India. There is plenty of other attacking threats on both sides and the matches between the two sides in the group stage were ridiculously tight, ending in a tie and a narrow win for Lancashire. I'm going to leave the match odds well alone and will leave my Yorkshire bias at the door. Instead I've picked out two player props for you to look at.
First up is England new boy and Lancs paceman Richard Gleeson to be top Lancashire bowler in their semi-final. Gleeson has consistently shown this year what he is all about and finally injury-free has picked up 23 wickets at 16 average in his 14 blast games this season. That form earnt him an England call up and he rewarded that pick with three wickets on his debut. He is a superb death bowler and bowls a mean yorker. That could result in him cleaning up some Yorkshire batters in the last few overs when swinging the willow.
Secondly, we've gone for another form cricketer, Steven Croft. The 37-year-old Lancashire veteran has been superb this season, top scoring for the red rose with 498 ruins at 41.5, with four fifties along the way. Croft usually comes in number three and showed his class in the semi-final, scoring 76* off just 48 balls. Croft has been boosted out to 9/2 when he's as short as 3/1 elsewhere.
My last pick is a simple one. Hampshire to win against Somerset. I tipped up Hampshire to win the whole thing pre-tournament and after a shocking start they have been magnificent in recent weeks. James Vince and Ben McDermott are the best opening pair in the competition and with the variety and mystery of spinners Liam Dawson and Mason Crane in the middle overs, Hampshire will be a tough prospect for anyone. They've been here and done this, reaching six straight finals from 2010, as well as 2017 and 2021.
Somerset have plenty of firepower themselves, including the sensational Rilee Rossouw, but have a habit of flunking on the big occasion in this competition. I think Hampshire's experience will take them into the final and possibly the Blast title.
