Vince sees Royals to the finals

• 26/07/2010

The Hampshire Royals progressed to Finals day at the Rosebowl with a five wicket victory over the Bears thanks to an unbeaten 66 from James Vince and left the Bears with a sixth successive quarter-final defeat.

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The Bears were put into bat by Dominic Cork on an overcast evening at Edgbaston and lost the in-form Neil Carter in the opening over, bowled by Cork for just a single.
Maddy and Barker picked up the pace racing to fifty one off just thirty seven balls before Briggs bowled Barker with his first ball of what was to be a telling spell.
Darren Maddy top scoring for the Bears with forty four, was taken in the deep by James Vince when he skied to long on and one run later, Jim Troughton was run out, when Cork’s direct hit beat his desperate dive.
Ian Westwood followed for five in the thirteenth over and with the Bears teetering on 95-5, Tim Ambrose 31* and Rikki Clarke 27* came together and batted through to the conclusion of the innings, posting an unbeaten partnership of fifty eight as the Bears innings closed on 153-5.

Briggs 3-29 was the pick of the Royals' bowlers.

In their reply, Hampshire made a strong start, reaching thirty four from twenty five balls until Adams’ attempted drive for six was caught by Woakes at long-on off Carter.
This brought James Vince to partner the experienced Abdul Razzaq and they added forty four runs for the second wicket before Razzaq 33 was bowled by Steff Piolet.
With the Hampshire middle order struggling to make an impact, nineteen year old Vince took control and with a combination of hard hitting and intelligent running, he took Hampshire to victory by five wickets and kept up the Bears’ unenviable run of six T20 quarter-final defeats.
Vince finished with an unbeaten sixty six from fifty two deliveries and hit five fours and two sixes.
Earlier, Steff Piolet bowled McKenzie and then took a stunning, flying catch on the mid-wicket boundary to remove Ervine.
Carberry was run out and his dismissal gave the Bears a brief hope of an unlikely win, but Vince made sure of Hampshire appearing on their own ground on Finals day with one ball to spare.