Birmingham Bears have a Vitality Blast quarter-final visit to Kent to look forward to after the pieces fell perfectly into place on the final day of the group stage.
The Bears beat Northamptonshire Steelbacks at Edgbaston to pile the pressure on Worcestershire Rapids to win their last game, away to Leicestershire Foxes and look forward to a quarter-final in Canterbury on Friday 27 August, 7pm start.
The Foxes did the Bears the necessary favour, so Will Rhodes’ side goes through to the last eight at the end of a group campaign in which they have had to withstand multiple blows from injury, Covid and international calls.
“It is a brilliant effort from the guys to have qualified after taking quite a few hits to the squad along the way. We finished the group with two excellent wins – Worcester and Northants are two very good T20 teams so to beat them well gives us great momentum for when we go down to Kent.
Will Rhodes
“Kent and us haven’t played each other for a very long time, so that will be very interesting.
“We owe the Foxes a favour, that’s for sure, but we got the job done in the last two games and that was always the aim. It was a very good and a very professional performance from the guys yesterday. Chris Benjamin was outstanding on debut and it was good to get the two points to keep in the mix.
“There is still so much to look forward to in the season. Now we look straight ahead to the 50-over campaign. There is no respite, we start on Thursday so we will have a couple of nets and off we go again.
“We will also resume the championship top of the table with the points we take forward, which almost gives us a game in hand on some of the other sides, which is great credit to the guys. So we are still in the mix in all formats which is exactly where we want to be.”
Further information of tickets for the quarter-final at Canterbury will be released by Kent in the coming days.
