Cricket News : T20 Vitality Blast South and North round up

On Friday, South Division table-toppers Surrey defeated Kent Spitfires to secure a home quarter-final as they chased down a mammoth score of 191 with nine balls to spare. Apart from them, Hampshire Hawks entered the quarter-finals at the expense of Gloucestershire. Amongst North Division, toppers Birmingham Bears booked a place in the quarter-finals by defeating Yorkshire Vikings by 31-runs, whereas Leicestershire Foxes kept their hopes alive of snatching a place in the quarter-final by grabbing a dramatic win by one run over Northamptonshire Steelbacks. Two significant highlights from Friday night's Vitality Blast action are: 

Jos Buttler loses on his return to the domestic league  

The in-form attacking batter Jos Buttler returned to Vitality for Lancashire Lighting but with a defeat. England's new white-ball captain smashed 42 off 29 while chasing a target of 179 posted by Worcestershire Rapids. The batter hit two boundaries and three sixes while playing at a strike rate of 144.2. However, the astonishing batting line-up collapsed, leaving visitors with a 29-run defeat against bottom-placed Worcestershire Rapids. 

The Lightning looked sure to win this game and seal a spot for the quarter-finals, but Brett D'Oliveira returned with his career's best T20 digits of 4-20 to reverse the results dramatically. Lancashire Lighting now has all hopes from the final qualifying match against Birmingham Bears on Sunday. 

Dan Christian knocks of T20 Vitality 2022 in vain

Nottinghamshire Outlaws' last desperate hopes of the seventh successive T20 quarter-finals vanished despite grabbing a comfortable four-wicket win over Durham at Trent Bridge as they needed a tied match between Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. However, Leicestershire Foxes defeated Northamptonshire by one run in a thriller to snatch away this dream of qualification from Notts Outlaws. 

The match saw a rousing farewell for skipper Dan Christian who led his side to T20 Glory twice in 2017 and 2020. Though he didn't have an opportunity to bat in his final game, the skipper looked ecstatic witnessing a chase led by Joe Clarke and Ben Duckett to end the tour on a winning note. In his last season, he smashed 197 runs in 11 innings with a strike rate of 131.3 and an average of 24.6. His highest score of 56 came against Yorkshire Vikings in this edition at Leeds. Apart from that, he made a decent contribution with the ball in times of need to scalp four wickets in 6 innings, carrying an economy of 11.13.