Twenty20 Finals Day: We pick out six memorable moments from previous seasons
Watch this year's Finals Day live on Sky Sports 2 HD from 10.30am on Saturday
Thursday 21 August 2014 15:40, UK
Twenty20 Finals Day is upon us on Saturday, with Birmingham, Hampshire, Lancashire and Surrey battling it out to win the NatWest Blast competition.
The Bears will be bidding for victory on home turf at Edgbaston, while Hampshire and Surrey have both been crowned domestic champions before. Lancashire, meanwhile, will be looking to get their hands on the trophy having fallen just short in previous years, most notably when they lost to Somerset back in 2005.
As we prepare for the latest edition of county cricket's big day out, which can be seen live on Sky Sports, we take a look back at some of the highlights from previous years...
2003 - Surrey win first final
The first domestic Twenty20 final in the competition turned out to be a cakewalk. In truth, the competition very nearly never happened – the counties took some convincing the idea would ever work. Thankfully they gave it the thumbs up, and the inaugural Finals Day showed that the format had caught the imagination of the sporting public, not just those who already had a love of cricket. Surrey were one of the powerhouses of the domestic game at the time, though no one expected them to win the tournament in such an emphatic fashion.
James Ormond claimed 4-11 as Warwickshire were bowled out for 115, a total they did well to reach in the end having at one stage lost half their side with only 33 on the scoreboard. Surrey soon put that total into perspective, the opening duo of Ali Brown – for whom T20 cricket was surely made – and Sky Sports’ very own Ian Ward putting on a century stand in a hurry. In the end Adam Hollioake’s team coasted to a nine-wicket victory with an astonishing 55 balls to spare. It got so bad for poor Warwickshire that even Nick Knight turned his arm over…
2004 – Leicestershire stun the champions
The second year of the competition saw it continue to blossom. A quarter-final stage was added as counties realised the desire for the product – new (and old) stars were being made as players realised the need to adapt their game and find ways to cope with the hurly burly nature of T20 action. If it had been a bit of a gimmick to start with, it was now being taken very, very seriously. Surrey were still the team to beat, and they were yet to taste defeat in the format by the time they came up against the rather unfancied Leicestershire.
The writing was perhaps on the wall in the semi-finals for the reigning champions, as they just squeezed past a Lancashire line-up boasting Andrew Flintoff, Carl Hooper and Dominic Cork. In the final they were finally beaten (and in captain Hollioake’s final Twenty20 outing, too) as the Foxes foiled their bid to retain the trophy they had won at Trent Bridge the previous year. Brad Hodge was the hero for Leicestershire, making an unbeaten 77 to steer them to a seven-wicket win. Wily old pros Darren Maddy and Jeremy Snape – inventor of the ‘moon ball’ - also played key roles as the underdogs caused an upset.
2006 – Foxes reign again in the rain
Leicestershire celebrated a second title in 2006, becoming the first county to lift the trophy for a second time in the process, albeit in slightly controversial circumstances at an extremely wet Trent Bridge. Nottinghamshire had home advantage but were not given any help by the conditions. The Outlaws had sent Surrey packing in the
