The only real excitement that the quarter-finals of the Twenty20 Cup in England exhibited was off the field, rather than on it. And the generated thrill was due to the cancelling of a cricket match, due to suspicions about the legality of a player’s right to play for one of the counties. Clearly, the matches that actually got played had failed to live up to their billing.

From all the three matches that did get played, the most exciting was the third quarter-final between Middlesex and Lancashire that was the Oval hosted. The former won the toss and decided to bat first on a wicket that probably swung a bit, and soon found themselves at 2/2 and 21/4 and in a lot of trouble. It was here that the duo of Eoin Morgan and Dawid Malan got together and pulled Middlesex out of the quagmire; adding 80 runs. But the real fireworks came in at the fall of Morgan’s wicket, as Malan pulled, hooked, cut and drove with panache to get to his first T20 hundred, coming off only 54 deliveries. The score of 176 was his team got to, something not totally impossible to chase down, but reasonably difficult in a knock-out game.

However, the start that Lancashire got was something they could have done without. Lou Vincent and G. Cross departed early, but the biggest scalp was that of Stuart Law – their skipper – who departed for only 11. Lancashire was at 11/3 at this stage. The rest of the batting did try their level best, especially, on the back of a fighting fifty by Andrew Flintoff, but in the end, some superb bowling by Murali Kartik saw Middlesex through to the semi-finals by 12 runs.

Incidentally, Flintoff, who is recuperating from his injury bowled all the four stipulated overs, conceding only 17 runs and picking up three scalps! Clearly, the signs are good for England.

Essex played Northamptonshire at Chelmsford and had no difficulty in disposing them off the latter. Winning the toss and bating first, none of the Essex batsmen crossed fifties, yet they managed to pile on a 192/9 in the twenty overs; a good enough total in a pressure, knock-out. This was amply helped by Ravindra Bopara’s 26-ball 47 and a late order flourish by Graham Napier, who hit out 40 runs in only twenty deliveries. Northampton’s target was reduced to 175 in 18 overs due to rain during the innings break, but that did nothing to prop up their spirits. The start was as abysmal as it could get, as Napier continued his good form with the ball. He broke the back of the team by picking up 4/10 in his four overs, and by the time Nicky Boje scored 43-ball 58, it was too late and all over bar the shouting.

Essex had won by 59 runs by the Duckworth-Lewis formula, and Graham Napier was the Player-of-the-Match for his superlative all-round effort.  Graham Napier now appears to have made a real claim for inclusion in the England Twenty20 side, and with the Million dollar match looming he must be rightly pleased with his efforts in recent weeks.

In the 4^th quarter-final that got spilled over to the reserve day due to heavy rains, Kent faced up to Warwickshire. And for the third time in a row, the team that had batted first moved on to the semi-final stage of the tournament. Darren Stevens’ brilliant hitting saw him get to 69 off just 32 deliveries, but his team could only struggle up to 175/6 in twenty overs; clearly 20 runs adrift of their expectations. The Warwickshire reply was as feeble as it could get. Wickets kept falling at regular intervals, with the highest total been that of Ant Botha’s 35. By that time, the match was done and dusted after Yasir Arafat had picked up three in his allotted quota of four overs, conceding 29 runs.

Kent had triumphed by 42 runs.

As mentioned earlier, the biggest piece of action came in the Yorkshire-Durham match that first got postponed and then ended in Yorkshire’s disqualification from the tournament. This was because Yorkshire had earlier fielded an ineligible player, Azeem Rafiq, who had not been officially registered as a first class player. This meant that only minutes before the start of the game, the miffed spectators were informed of the decision of the postponement. It was finally decided that Yorkshire would be expelled from the tournament, and their points would be awarded to Nottinghamshire, who now face up to Durham.

More on the Durham-Nottinghamshire match later…