This Sunday’s fixture promises to be an epic encounter, a Clash of the Champions, between Birmingham Bears and Lancashire Lightning. The 2015 season saw Lancashire sneak through the group stages, after a late flurry of form, and with the momentum they built they went on to lift the NatWest T20 Blast trophy at Edgbaston on Finals Day. If all of this sounds a little familiar that’s probably because it’s exactly what the Bears did in 2014.
During the 2015 group games the two sides fought two incredible close games and both teams managed to steal wins away from home. In the first fixture at Old Trafford Recordo Gordon was the match hero as the Bears won the fixture by just one run in the final over of the game, but in the return T20 Blast fixture the Bears were unable to contain Steven Croft whose dominant performance with the bat saw Lancashire take home the points. Check out the highlights of the second game below.
This Season
Lancashire have been struggling for form early in the T20 Blast season, taking just 4pts from 5 games, and despite some decent performances from Jordan Clark and Jos Buttler they still find themselves down at the wrong end of the table in the Northern Group.
The Bears have had a better time of the early fixtures having won 2 of their opening 4 fixtures with some incredible batting from Sam Hain and Varun Chopra. Overseas player Luke Ronchi has also made some valuable contributions, scoring at a healthy strike-rate when he’s been called in to bat.
The Lightning will obviously have happy memories of Edgbaston, the last time they were here they were lifting a trophy on the outfield and coach Ashley Giles knows Edgbaston and the Bears squad like few others in the game. However the Bears will be after revenge following last season’s home loss and relinquishing the T20 Blast trophy to their northern rivals. However you weigh up these two teams, Sunday’s game promises to be unmissable.
A great day of sport
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