T20 Finals Day preview: Lancashire stars can finally shine

Coral preview the four remaining teams left in this year’s T20 Finals Day at Edgbaston, with the two South Division Counties and former winners joint-favourites. Home side Birmingham Bears face Surrey first in a repeat of the 2003 final, while Hampshire take on Lancashire Lightning in the other semi. But back Lancashire to cause an upset in the showdown later in the evening.

International stars are set to line up for their respective counties, and you can expect the likes of Kevin Pietersen, James Anderson, Jos Buttler and even Andrew Flintoff to feature.

First place prize money this year is £175k, but the victors will not take part in the Champions League, due to England’s County season running on until the end of September.

Birmingham Bears – 7/2
Despite having home advantage, at Edgbaston, the Midlands side are outsiders to win the competition out of the remaining four counties. Birmingham, formerly Warwickshire, will be taking part in their first Finals Day since the tournament’s inauguration in 2003, where they lost to their semi-final opponents this year.

The Bears will be relying on this season’s second-highest wicket taker and New Zealand international Jeetan Patel (23 at an astonishing average of 10.52), and all-rounder Rikki Clarke, with the latter speaking ahead of the event.

“We know we only scraped through from the group thanks to Nottinghamshire doing us a favour at Yorkshire but we are peaking at the right time,” he said. “Realistically, we are underdogs due to the simple fact that we have not been to a finals day for 11 years.”

Surrey – 9/4
Pietersen will be the main talking point of course for this competition, but the former England great has been in poor form ever since his exile from the international set-up. But we all know he performs on the big stage.

Surrey will be without Sri Lanka superstar Tillakaratne Dilshan, who has returned home, but have the brilliant young South African-born batsman Jason Roy. The 24-year-old top the scoring charts this season, in terms of runs scored, with 619 from 14 innings at an average of 47.61.

If both Roy and Pietersen can perform, expect last year’s runners-up to shine and win their first T20 since 2003.