Vitality Blast: Somerset smash highest score in competition’s history to storm into Finals Day | Cricket News

Somerset plunder Blast-record score of 265-5, with Rilee Rossouw (93 off 36 balls) hitting 34 runs off one over; Derbyshire then dismissed for just 74 in reply as Somerset secure 191-run win and a semi-final against Hampshire Hawks at Finals Day next Saturday, live on Sky Sports Cricket

Somerset blitzed a Vitality Blast-record score of 265-5 before demolishing Derbyshire Falcons for just 74 to secure a thumping 191-run win and the last spot at next weekend’s Finals Day at Edgbaston.

Rilee Rossouw (93 off 36 balls) hit 34 runs in spinner Mattie McKiernan’s 15th over, which featured five sixes, one four and two off a no-ball, on a night where the Falcons attack – except for George Scrimshaw (2-16) – were pummelled.

McKiernan went for 82 from his four overs, the most expensive figures in men’s T20 cricket history, while Somerset cracked 40 boundaries all told on the evening at Taunton (18 sixes and 22 fours).

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Mattie McKiernan had an over to forget, as Rilee Rossouw hit the Derbyshire man for five sixes and one four

Rossouw, whose innings contained seven sixes and eight fours, blasted 102 with Tom Banton (73 off 41) for Somerset’s second wicket in a little over eight overs during which Banton was dropped on 29 by Ben Aitchison.

Tom Lammonby then plundered 31 from just nine deliveries, while Ben Green’s second six off Alex Hughes in the final over took Somerset past the previous record Blast score of 261-2, which had been set by Birmingham Bears against Nottinghamshire Outlaws in June.

Somerset smashed the highest Vitality Blast total in history

A shell-shocked Derbyshire were rolled in just 11.2 overs in reply – Green and Peter Siddle taking three wickets each and Craig Overton two – as they suffered the heaviest defeat in Blast history and saw their hopes of a second Finals Day appearance spectacularly crushed.

Somerset have secured a semi-final with Hampshire Hawks at Edgbaston next Saturday, live on Sky Sports Cricket, with Roses rivals Yorkshire Vikings and Lancashire Lightning to meet in the other last-four clash.

Somerset finished runners-up to Kent Spitfires in 2021 and will take some stopping this year if their batting fires as it did against Derbyshire.

Rossouw and Banton took 19 runs off the 10th over, bowled by Luis Reece, and 21 off the 12th, sent down by McKiernan, before McKiernan’s 15th went for an eye-watering 36.

Scrimshaw struck twice in the 17th over, with Rossouw caught at deep midwicket, but there was further punishment to come for Derbyshire with Lammonby going 4,4,6,4,6 in the 18th over, bowled by Aitchison.

Mark Watt’s penultimate over was then taken for 16 and Green ensured the last, delivered by Hughes, went for 14.

Derbyshire’s run chase was a nightmare and came to an end when the unfortunate McKeirnan skied a catch off Green, having been involved in a calamitous run out an over earlier that had led to Aitchison’s dismissal.

Watch Vitality Blast Finals Day live on Sky Sports Cricket from 10.15am on Saturday, July 16.