Great Things

Yesterday's trip to the small east Devon seaside town of Budleigh Salterton for the trans-Tamar Minor Counties clash between Devon and Cornwall (pictured) was the ideal way to come down after the considerable and lengthy excitement of Saturday's Twenty20 finals day.

I've written before about how much I enjoy the truncated form of the game and Saturday's three matches were no exception. Before the day pretty well everybody would have expected Lancashire and Sussex to contest the final. Instead, thanks to some magnificent batting by Craig Spearman, Robert Key and Joe Denly among others, supported by terrific fielding, it was Kent and Gloucestershire who did so, with Kent coming out on top as a result of some great death batting from Darren Stevens, a player of some class who's never quite done justice to his ability, and a hat-trick from the young South African all-rounder Ryan McLaren.

After the group stages were largely ruined by the June monsoon the final three games and Edgbaston's pulsating atmosphere were a timely reminder of why this competition is the most important thing to have hit the English county game since the 1960s.

On Sunday I had the pleasure of watching a measured and classy knock of 93 from a tall Cornish 17 year-old called Matt Robins. I've got no idea whether he'll make it or not but there must be plenty of people playing county cricket who weren't as good as him at the same age.

If he goes on to great things you read it here first.