Finals Day might not be to everyone's fancy but it is fun, frantic and genuinely fan-friendly

SAM MORSHEAD AT EDGBASTON: Finals Day, to some, is everything our game should not be. It is garish, loud, a little uncouth, flashy and frenetic; it does not apologise for itself. But why should it?

It was just after 6pm when Mr Motivator arrived, stage right, clad in a paint-splatter bodysuit.

Stick with me, this really is about cricket.

The 66-year-old jogged onto the Edgbaston outfield at the sort of pace you might expect from a man of pensionable age, two leotarded helpers on either side, and took to a podium in front of the Eric Hollies Stand.

Really, cricket is coming.

For the next 10 minutes, though, Motivator - real name Derrick Evans - led the ragtag bunch in front of him in the sort of aerobics session you might expect to see if you played a Davina McCall DVD to the Red Lion locals just before closing time.

What a sight it was. Parrots, and Elvises, and cardinals, and Beefeaters, and Flintstones, and lifeguards and human-sized bananas, arms in the air, and to the front, and to the sides. 

^{Fans in fancy dress in the Eric Hollies Stand}

Little more than 50 yards away, the Worcestershire squad were warming up for their domestic one-day final. On TMS, Daniel Norcross and Ebony Rainford-Brent were commentating on the episode live.

All the while, everyone seemed to be of the opinion that this was absolutely normal.

And that is probably because it is.

Finals Day, to some, is everything our game should not be. It is garish, loud, a little uncouth, flashy and frenetic; it does not apologise for itself. 

But why should it?

It is the Sweet Carolines and the inflatable watermelons, the fancy dress and the mascot race, the volume and the vibrancy which make this day so popular. 

This year, ticket allocations for the four competing counties were increased, following complaints that just 530 were made available to each 12 months ago: 750 were on offer to Worcestershire, Essex, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire this time around. Whisper it, but two of the quartet struggled to sell out - and one even attempted to send a handful back to Edgbaston on the eve of Finals Day.

The appetite for this occasion, then, extends way beyond the fans of the teams involved. Edgbaston could sell out Finals Day several times over and still have a massive waiting list. 

The cricket is entertaining, the format is familiar, the ground has a reputation as quite possibly the best place to watch major matchday cricket in the country, and the event is run with precision and a sense of humour. 

Often, the crowd’s character is the target of barbed tongues. The Hollies is rowdy, no doubt. It is sometimes wild. To those who find themselves in the wrong seats, it can probably feel obnoxious. But the argument that its residents attend only to drink and cause havoc can be quickly disproved by a simple wander through the queue for the toilets in between innings.

There, you will hear discussions about bowler selection and knuckleballs, about run rates and the next England T20 squad. Yes, not all the conversations are particularly coherent, but they are about the game.

There is a reason why these lines are so long when no cricket is being played - people want to be in their seats when the action is on.

^{Young supporters at Finals Day}

And in any case, the Hollies is only one stand, and the way those who sit in it consume Finals Day is not obligatory for the other 18,000 people inside the venue.

Edgbaston splits its audience effectively, with the opposite side of the stadium reserved for families and fans of the clubs in action. 

While the demographic in the Hollies is largely fixed - men in their 20s, 30s and 40s - that one terrace does not represent the ground as a whole. There are many and varied ages, genders, and backgrounds here - though admittedly not a large number of south Asians, whose love for the game the ECB will be so keenly pursuing with The Hundred. 

As if to deliberately undermine that famous old comment from Andrew Strauss that English cricket’s soon-to-be fourth format would appeal to “mums and kids”, midway through the day the big screen showed ‘Simba cam’: a tiny baby being pushed held aloft Lion King-style. 

Tickets, when they first went on sale, ranged between £46 and £91 - levels which represent pretty good value for money when compared to the £100-plus demanded for a day of Test cricket, for which punters might ordinarily expect to see as few as 82 overs.

Even in a year when Finals Day has been shifted to a date equidistant between summer and winter solstices, its popularity remained. It has become one of the first dates many county cricket fans circle when the fixtures are released, one of the first tickets they look to buy.

And that is because, believe it or not, it really does accommodate everyone.

Even Mr Motivator.