An eight-run defeat to Birmingham Bears at Edgbaston brought Durham’s Vitality Blast campaign to an end. Durham head coach Ryan Campbell summarised the defeat, “I think the whole game probably sums up our T20 season in a nutshell.”
Durham limited the hosts to just 141 but struggled to back that up with the bat, falling 84 for nine. Campbell continued, “We’ve shown really good signs at times but then made big mistakes and unfortunately today we made those mistakes with the bat whereas probably all year it’s been with the ball.
Durham have made scores of over 200 twice and of 150 plus a further eight times this campaign, a marked improvement on previous campaigns. He said, “As a batting unit, we’ve been going really well, but I think 140 today should have been chaseable.
Durham lost three wickets to spin bowling, including captain Alex Lees and Michael Jones. Campbell said, “We knew the wicket was going to spin and Birmingham have always got good spinners so the pressure was going to be on but we just lot too many wickets in the powerplay.
He continued, “We just made simple mistakes. They were faced by some good, challenging spin and just didn’t stand up to it.”
Durham picked up three victories during the campaign in addition to two ties against Derbyshire and Worcestershire Rapids and a no result against Yorkshire, Campbell discussed what could have been.
“As for the campaign as a whole, you look at the games we should have won, the ties we should have won, and we should have come here today competing for a quarter-final spot.”
Despite impressive bowling campaigns from Nathan Sowter and Ben Raine, the losses of Brydon Carse to injury and Matthew Potts to England duty were evidently damning blows to Durham’s campaign.
Campbell said, “Our bowling resources were stretched by injuries and Potts going to [play for] England so that is an area we will have to address because we want to be a really good T20 team and a club that competes in all formats.”