"Proud of the way boys played right through": Essex skipper Simon Harmer after losing T20 Blast final
Jul 16, 2023
Birmingham [UK], July 16 : Essex skipper Simon Harmer hailed his team's fighting spirit after ending up on the losing side against Somerset in the T20 Vitality Blast final on Saturday.
Somerset capped off their campaign with a title win after enjoying an unstoppable run in the group stage. Essex's approach of playing aggressively served them well throughout the tournament but came back to haunt them in the defining moment.
After the game, Harmer didn't dwell on focusing on the negatives and picking out a reason for his team's loss in the final. Instead, he heaped praise on his team for putting up performances throughout the tournament which made him proud.
"I don't know; you can pick up a million pieces after the game. Unfortunately, there is a loser and that was us tonight. One thing you can't take away from Essex is that we fight till the end. We came out of the blocks strongly and you hope to take that momentum, but unfortunately couple of things didn't go our way and credit to them on how they bowled. I said to the boys that nobody gave us a chance coming into this tournament, but we showed how good we are as a team. Proud of the way the boys played right through," Harmer said in the post-match presentation.
Coming to the match, Somerset defended their total of 145, with New Zealand's pacer Matt Henry ripping apart Essex with a scintillating spell of 4/24.
His spell was crucial in deciding the fate of the game as the pacer brought an end to Daniel Sams' heroic attempts to win the match on his own, with the help of a flying, one-handed catch from Tom Kohler-Cadmore.
Essex had been the fastest-scoring side in the powerplay this season but they were also prone to early collapses. In the final, they initially showcased positive signs as they moved to 27 in the first 11 balls and then ended up losing four wickets from the next 17 deliveries.
This played a huge role as the rest of the batting order started to fall under the pressure of maintaining a reasonable gap between the run and ball ratio.
Australia all-rounder Daniel Sams tried to swing the momentum back into their favour but his 45 proved insufficient as Essex fell short by 14 runs.
