When Hampshire and Somerset met in a one-sided semi-final at Cardiff in 2012, the match was the third consecutive fixture between the two teams at a T20 Finals Day.
Hampshire, who went on to win that tournament, were three years into an unprecedented run of six Finals Days in a row, which lasted until 2014.
Their opponents had finished runners-up in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 tournaments, to Sussex, Hampshire and Leicestershire respectively, and were the country’s premier one-day side.
However, fast forward to 2016 and the sides prop up the bottom of a nine-team South Group in the T20 Blast after a combined five wins in 22 fixtures.
Two T20 heavyweights at the foot of the South Group #Blast16 pic.twitter.com/63zbiY4V7I
— Matt Roller (@mroller98) 14 July 2016
Where has it gone wrong for the South-West pair?
Hampshire: Injuries and Poor Recruitment
Hampshire’s run of six consecutive Finals Days in a row was founded on a strong batting core, a polished bowling unit and a handful of excellent overseas signings.
But in 2016, those resources have been decimated.
If last season is taken as a point of direct comparison, there is one clear factor that has hit Hampshire especially hard this season: the loss of captain James Vince to England duty for a majority of the season.
Vince was the linchpin of the Hampshire batting order last season, with a competition-high 710 runs in his 16 innings at an average of 59.17 and an impressive strike-rate of 134.47.
He was supported by Michael Carberry (456 runs) and Owais Shah (402), but both have struggled this year. Carberry lacked fluency in his six innings this season before the sad news of a discovery of a cancerous tumour on Thursday evening, and Shah was released at the end of 2015. Importantly, no batsman has been able to fill the void left by those three, and the days in which Jimmy Adams, Neil MacKenzie and Sean Ervine were prolific run-scorers appear long gone.
Questions must by asked as to whether Darren Sammy and Shahid Afridi were the right signings for Hampshire to have made this season given the lack of batting depth in the Southampton side’s squad, and the failure to replace left-arm spinner Danny Briggs over the winter. Until Thursday’s victory over Glamorgan, Hampshire had won just once in 2016, an embarrassing record for a team with such Twenty20 pedigree.
However, there is at least something of a defence that injuries have hugely depleted Hampshire.
England seamer Reece Topley and prolific left-armer Chris Wood both picked up long-term injuries towards the start of the season. Fidel Edwards was also ruled out for the whole campaign; Ryan McLaren was hurt against Durham in the County Championship; and Gareth Berg has been a perennial injury issue in the past few seasons which has left Hampshire as many as five seamers short this summer. It is hard to think of any side in the country that would not suffer with such problems.
Somerset: Squad Overhaul and Coaching Changes
The Somerset side that reached Finals Day for four seasons in a row had several players in as constants in the team, and in the past three seasons, all of them have made a departure for one reason or another.
The prolific opening partnership of Marcus Trescothick and Craig Kieswetter were almost guaranteed to get the Cidermen off to a flying start between 2007 and 2013, but after Kieswetter’s career-ending eye injury in 2014 and Trescothick’s complete loss of one-day form, neither has made a T20 appearance in 2016.
Jos Buttler acted as a ‘finisher’ in his time at the club, but left in the winter of 2013 in an attempt to get more time keeping wicket at Lancashire, and death bowler Alfonso Thomas is now several years past his best and was released after a poor 2015 season.
Left-arm spinner George Dockrell and all-rounder Arul Suppiah were both useful squad members in the run of knock-out appearances, but the Irishman regressed hugely in his final two seasons at the club, and Suppiah was forced to retire after a chronic knee injury in 2014.
Any county would struggle with the loss of players of that calibre, but Somerset’s main issue has been a failure to replace them adequately.
The much-maligned Jim Allenby has a perfectly respectable batting record for Somerset in the past two seasons, with 515 runs at 27.1, and Peter Trego has continued to be a fantastic white-ball performer, but an inexperienced bowling attack and a batting line-up that is ill-suited to the shortest form has meant that Somerset have struggled for any consistency.
Both Dave Nosworthy, coach from 2013 to 2014, and Matt Maynard, the present incumbent, must take some blame for these failings, but it is also the club’s recruitment policy again that has made them suffer.
Fans have pointed to the signing of the expensive Chris Gayle for the past two seasons as a move focused on marketing and ticket sales rather than cricket: although he has an excellent record of 515 runs at an average of 84.2 for the county, he has only batted eight times in two seasons on an inflated wage whilst taking up an overseas spot.
Next season, most members would rather see a player signed who is available for the whole tournament on a respectable wage than another stint from a man with a big reputation but limited availability.
Verdict:
Both Hampshire and Somerset have suffered hugely due to the loss of key players through various reasons over the past few seasons, but it is their failure to replace them that has really made them suffer in 2016.
The counties must both be looking to strengthen over the winter to make amends for disastrous 2016 seasons in the Blast, and it will be fascinating to see if they change their overseas strategies from signing big names like Afridi, Sammy, Gayle and Jayawardene regardless of what is needed to a more pragmatic, cricket-focused approach.
