Shahid Afridi tonks ton to send Hampshire to T20 Blast Finals Day
Afridi's ton his first in T20 cricket and the quickest of the 2017 Blast
Wednesday 23 August 2017 00:18, UK
Shahid Afridi's first T20 century fired Hampshire to a record seventh Finals Day of the NatWest T20 Blast, as they inflicted a 101-run thrashing of Derbyshire in Tuesday's first quarter-final.
Taking only 42 balls, Afridi's ton - which contained 10 fours and seven sixes - is the quickest of this year's tournament and it helped lift Hampshire to their highest-ever T20 total of 249-8, batting first.
Appearing in their first quarter-final since 2005, if Derbyshire's efforts with the ball were poor, their response with the bat was equally feeble, crumbling to 148 all out.
Put into bat by their hosts at Derby, Hampshire's innings got off to the best possible start as Afridi smashed Wayne Madsen's part-time spin for 16 from the first over.
While Afridi's opening partner, Calvin Dickinson (18), perished in the fifth - a superb tumbling catch by Matt Henry at mid-on - it did not affect the free scoring, with Afridi cracking the next two balls for six.
The veteran Pakistani batsman did offer up a couple of chances in his enterprising innings but was dropped twice, first by Henry in the sixth over, and then Madsen spilling an easier chance in the eighth.
Following the let-offs, Afridi raced through to his maiden T20 ton with his 10th boundary to end the 12th, but the fun was over swiftly after the celebrations as he fell in the deep to his next delivery.
James Vince (55) took on the big-hitting responsibilities, cracking three fours and as many sixes on his way through to a 32-ball fifty, while George Bailey too chipped in with two of each in a quick-fire 11-ball cameo for 27.
While Bailey's wicket in the 17th over brought about a flurry of wickets up to the close - legspinner Matt Critchley (3-32) taking two in two balls - Hampshire's score was still an utterly imposing one.
Live NatWest T20 Blast Cricket
It was a task that proved to be well beyond the Derbyshire batsmen, with the home side losing as many as seven wickets, for only 58 runs, inside nine overs of their chase - Liam Dawson taking 3-28.
Alex Hughes (23), Ben Cotton (30no) and Imran Tahir (23) added some slight shine to the score with some lusty lower-order hitting, helping Derbyshire beyond 100 and see them avoid suffering the biggest margin of defeat in domestic T20 history - Essex's 143-run defeat to Somerset in 2011 still the record.
Mason Crane (2-33) accounted for Hughes, while Cotton and Tahir's 46-run last-wicket partnership, and the match, was finally ended when Kyle Abbott (3-25) wrapped things up with the penultimate ball.
Watch Glamorgan v Leicestershire in the second NatWest T20 Blast quarter-final, live from 6pm on Wednesday on Sky Sports Cricket (channel 404).
