The Cricketer picks out the top performers from this year's T20 Blast, with representatives from eight counties
The top run-scorer in the competition despite Somerset not making it out of the group stage. An inspired overseas signing – from his obvious marketability to an insatiable appetite for runs, the languid Pakistan international could scarcely have done more to push his team’s chances.
An unbeaten century against Hampshire accompanied four other scores above fifty. Before Finals Day, Worcestershire batsman Riki Wessels paid tribute to Babar’s classical stroke-play, telling The Cricketer: “He just looks absolute class every time he hits the ball.
“There doesn’t look like there’s any effort or strain going into the way he’s batting.” And some. A crying shame that his efforts never saw the tournament’s knockout stages.
The breakout player of the year enjoyed a breakthrough competition – a journey that has, almost inevitably, ended with a first England call-up. If the early signs are anything to go by, it won’t be his last either.
An outrageous array of shots that has raised eyebrows throughout the game, only Babar accumulated more runs in the entire Blast than the 20-year-old. Given their top order, Somerset will wonder quite how they contrived to fall at the first hurdle.
No player in the tournament hit more boundaries than the 90 he carved, whipped, swept and reverse-swept during a golden summer for a young man with a huge future. His stint in New Zealand promises to be exciting viewing.
In a competition full of batting talent, many could have slotted in where Tom Kohler-Cadmore finds himself – Wessels, D'Arcy Short, Sam Hain, Alex Hales and Cam Delport all enjoyed superb individual campaigns.
However, in a personal effort that went under the radar in amongst a difficult campaign for Yorkshire, Tom Kohler-Cadmore belted it. An average of 62.14 across 10 innings at the top of the order is the mark of a brutal opening batsman.
There were five scores above fifty, with 29 fours and 19 sixes coming in that time. Captaining his side, he could have done little more, even if others struggled around him.
Very possibly the player of the tournament, even in spite of playing just seven times. An extraordinary unbeaten century at Hove dragged his depleted Worcestershire side to Finals Day in the first place – a prolonged display of the finest ball-striking.
An average with the bat of 73 was testament to a quite astounding – if truncated – campaign. He hit 55 boundaries in 213 deliveries, with 30 sixes in his seven innings, six more than anyone struck in the entire tournament.
Cameron Delport was second on that list, having played twice the number of games. On Finals Day, he couldn’t quite take his side over the line, but as is typical of the man, Moeen’s men ended with their dignity intact.
Moeen Ali could not quite lead his side to a second successive T20 Blast crown
Dawid Malan was superb in a campaign that, for Middlesex, offered more than a ray of hope for the future. With a clear style of play put in place by the combination of Malan and Stuart Law, there was a fearlessness about everything his side did – an enormous step forward after years of T20 misery.
As captain, he backed the bravery of his bowlers, while encouraging his batsmen to display a reckless abandon that has been absent in Middlesex’s T20 cricket, almost ever since they won the competition back in 2008. The acquisition of AB de Villiers helped, but Malan’s own form was superb, hammering Surrey for a magnificent ton at The Oval early on, before following up with a match-winning 91 against Gloucestershire.
There are few who are easier on the eye than the England man – deservedly back in Eoin Morgan’s T20 squad for the tour of New Zealand.
A campaign that, with time, will mean an awful lot to Derbyshire’s oft-unheralded group. Typically, Wayne Madsen was at its forefront. A mightily fine player, combining ageless class with wristy innovation, the South Africa-born stalwart was a key cog in Dominic Cork’s side’s unlikely run to Finals Day. When he fell in the semi-final, bowled attempting to sweep Aron Nijjar, the game was all but up, such is his significance.
There were four half-centuries for the 35-year-old, all coming alongside an average of 46.40 – a pillar of consistency in a thrilling journey. His captain, Billy Godleman, finished just 11 runs behind him in the charts – two men in the top eight run-getters going a long way to grabbing a semi-final berth.
A man whose campaign best mirrored that of his team; Essex won just two of their first 10 games, before winning all of their last five. If Bopara was out of favour at times in the first part of a seemingly disappointing campaign, his recall – and the decision to push him down to number six as the side’s finisher – was inspired.
Quite simply, Essex would never have made it to Finals Day without Bopara, who was briefly dropped as Essex sought a winning formula. But having got to Edgbaston, they would never have seen off the threat of Worcestershire without him. The tournament’s best player when it mattered most.
“Sometimes you need to prove people wrong in order to make them believe and I think that was the case with him,” Simon Harmer reflected after Bopara’s match-winning unbeaten 36.
“He came back after time away from the team. He brought in 100 percent and reaped the rewards. He’s an incredibly talented cricketer.”
Bopara told The Cricketer before Finals Day: “The biggest shift for me in the last 12 months has been: 'Right, I’m just going to hit more sixes.”
How he kept his promise. Two crucial blows came at the back end of the final – one off Moeen Ali and another off Pat Brown, Worcestershire’s go-to pair put to the sword by Bopara, a man now setting his sights on dominating the T20 circuit. A lovely touch from Harmer to let Bopara, who made his Essex T20 debut in 2003, join him in lifting the trophy.
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Ravi Bopara made 36* as Essex beat Worcestershire to win the T20 Blast for the first time
Picked ahead of Simon Harmer here for his overall performances across the Blast, even if Harmer starred on Finals Day.
A coming-of-age tournament for Nottinghamshire’s underrated young off-spinner. He only took 14 wickets in the competition but did so at a miserly economy rate of just 6.59.
In his team, only Gurney has taken more wickets. Of the spinners to have taken more than 10 in the competition, only Colin Ackermann’s 12 scalps have come in more miserly fashion.
Certainly one for the future, the 6ft 6in finger-spinner has enormous potential – both as a bowler of white-ball guile and, surely, as a red-ball operator, where his extra bounce should give him a major advantage.
The top wicket-taker in the competition and a wonderful story of a man whose stock has re-risen immensely in the past few months. “From last year, I realised that my slower ball wasn’t working as much as it used to back in the Caribbean and when I played in the IPL,” he told The Cricketer before Finals Day.
He committed to bowling more yorkers in this year’s tournament, a transformation that worked beautifully. He ended the season with 23 wickets at an economy rate of just 6.70 as Derbyshire reached the semi-finals for the first time. A leader in an inexperienced group.
Nobody took more wickets than Ravi Rampaul in the competition
A season best vindicated for Matt Parkinson through a maiden England call-up for the winter tours of New Zealand. If his selection in the Test party is something of a surprise, having not been a regular in red-ball cricket for Lancashire this year, then his chance in the T20 squad is thoroughly merited, having enjoyed a supremely profitable Blast campaign.
It was hard not to sympathise with the Red Rose county on Finals Day, an occasion played out on a surface that would have suited their spin-heavy attack down to the ground. Parkinson led that group, taking 21 scalps in just 12 games, with a wicket coming every 11.7 deliveries.
The pace at which he bowls will be tested in New Zealand; a gutsy, courageous leg-spinner, he looks to toss the ball up rather than push it through as has become the norm among many of his peers.
That Harry Gurney has had better campaigns highlights quite what an expert he has become in the shortest format. Only Ravi Rampaul took more wickets in the competition than Gurney’s 22, even if an economy rate of 9 was higher than the left-armer will have wanted.
Running in at the death, however, that is the nature of the beast. And Gurney is made of stern stuff where that is concerned. His five-wicket haul against Derbyshire was bettered only by Colin Ackermann’s world-record feat against Birmingham Bears.
Unfortunate not to have made England’s touring party of New Zealand.
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