The night Hampshire won twice: Finals Day ends as only Finals Day can

SAM MORSHEAD AT EDGBASTON: At a little before a quarter to 10 at night, everything went mad. And Hampshire won the T20 Blast final twice in five minutes

Edgbaston: Hampshire Hawks 152-9, Lancashire Lightning 151-8 - Hampshire Hawks won by one run

Scorecard 

It was just as well the person in charge of the fireworks overcatered. 

On a balmy night in Birmingham, the barmiest ending to the silliest day in English cricket. The sort of ending you might conjure up in a fever dream; the sort which only really works in children's literature; the sort the written press pray never happens. 

At a little before a quarter to 10 at night, everything went mad. And Hampshire won the T20 Blast final twice in five minutes. 

We have been famously told that you can easily tell when something brilliant has happened, because there are people running in every direction. When Nathan Ellis completed - or thought he had completed - the most marvellous of T20 spells with a yorker that castled Richard Gleeson, yellow shirts bounced around the Edgbaston outfield like marbles in a jar. 

Hampshire, whose chances of victory had slipped from unlikely to remote in the first half of the Lancashire chase, had fought their way to their first Blast title in a decade, by four runs.

^{Hampshire celebrate victory in the T20 Blast final [Getty Images]}

^{The Hawks won by one run at Edgbaston [Getty Images]}

Support staff sprinted on, their lanyards jumping up their noses. Water carriers threw their drinks in the air. The pocket of 800 or so Hawks supporters leapt from their seats in a mass of arms and beer. Fire bulged around the outfield, red sparkles and white rockets lit up the evening sky. 

And then, through the smoke which glided across the ground, emerged the outstretched arm of the only man who hadn't been running in one direction or another: umpire Graham Lloyd, standing there in the pyrotechnic mist emotionless, the man who said no.

Lloyd's manner felt rather parental as he struggled to make the riotous Hampshire side aware - one by one - that Ellis had overstepped. No, Nathan, now is not the time to party. Not at least until you've tidied your room. 

It took several minutes for the majority of the firework fog, and no doubt the minds of the players, officials and fans, to clear, with Edgbaston gripped in a semi-drunk stupor, totally lost, trying to find a way to reset. What the hell just happened?

Now, instead of having won the final by four runs, Hampshire had just one to play with, courtesy of Lancashire's superior position on wickets lost - and Gleeson had a free hit. 

Take a look at the Google Trends chart for "T20 Blast playing conditions" around this time, and you'll probably see an Everestian spike from a concentrated region in the West Midlands. 

^{Richard Gleeson celebrates the wicket of James Vince [Getty Images]}

^{Matt Parkinson's four wickets were in vain [Getty Images]}

Rinse. Repeat. Ellis at the end of his run, just as unflappable as before. Now the Australian was the only one running, legs pumping to the crease. Another yorker. A swing and a miss. A mad dash for a bye between the Lancashire batsmen, which was never going to be enough. Hampshire had won, again, for the second time that over, the second time that night, and the third time in their history. The fireworks could rain again. 

Ellis's fiancee Connie, sitting with friends in the crowd, has only watched her partner play one day of cricket in this country, yet she has somehow seen him win his team English cricket's top prize twice. 

The 26-year-old seamer was brilliant across four overs in trying circumstances, mixing lengths, line and pace, making Lancashire work as hard as they could possibly have been made to work, given how pretty the Red Rose were sitting at 72 for 1 in the eighth over, chasing just 153.

His contribution in this final was zero wickets and 23 runs, which is as good an argument as any for the "scorebook never tells the whole story" fraternity. He, and Liam Dawson's hyper-disciplined left-arm spin, inspired Hampshire, who looked to have been terminally injured midway through this chase. 

Dawson took 2 for 23 from his four overs. Lancashire found a way of making just 79 runs from the last 74 balls of the second innings, despite beginning that run with nine wickets in hand and with two batsmen well set. 

^{Luke Wells is run out by Vince [Getty Images]}

It was a ludicrous slump, on a surface which behaved throughout the day and brought more runs than on any previous Finals Day.

Was it stagefright? It would have been odd if so, given the disdainful nature of a much bigger chase in their semi-final victory over Yorkshire Vikings.

Was it writer's block? For 15 minutes, at a crucial juncture, Luke Wells and Danny Lamb wriggled and fidgeted but barely managed to squirt the ball off the square. The 17th over, off Ellis, went for three runs as Lamb swung back and forth without connecting. 

Or was it just unexplainable, like so much about this ridiculous sport?

It is probably easiest to think of it as the latter, at least tonight. At least while the fog drifts away, and the person in charge of the fireworks settles down to raise a glass to a job thoroughly well done.

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