T20 Blast: Kent beat Birmingham Bears to secure first all-South Group Finals Day

3 years ago 54

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Kent captain Sam Billings hit his 22nd half-century in T20 cricket, although only half of them have been for the Spitfires

Vitality Blast quarter-final, The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence, Canterbury
Kent 162-7 (20 overs): Billings 56, Bell-Drummond 53; Bresnan 4-26
Birmingham Bears 141 (20 overs): Lintott 41; Milnes 3-24
Kent beat Birmingham Bears by 21 runs
Match scorecard

Kent sealed a clean sweep for the South Group sides in the T20 Blast quarter-finals as they booked a place at Finals Day for the first time in 12 years.

Sam Billings led from the front with 56 as Kent beat Birmingham Bears to join Somerset, Hampshire and Sussex in the last four of the competition.

Chasing 162-7 under the Canterbury lights, the Bears buckled from 36-1 to 55-6 to lose by 21 runs on 141.

Kent, 2007 winners, face 2009 victors Sussex at Edgbaston on 18 September.

Hampshire and Somerset will meet in the other semi-final, a repeat of the 2010 final.

Billings and Daniel Bell-Drummond (53) each took 37 balls to ease Kent to a decent, although slightly sub-par, score.

But the Bears then collapsed alarmingly before some fabulous late fireworks from Jake Lintott and Tim Bresnan gave the visitors some false hope.

The Bears' defeat, in their first quarter-final in four years, turned into a repeat of their only previous T20 meeting with Kent, in 2008, a 42-run loss, also at the last-eight stage.

The only two survivors from that match were England pair Joe Denly and Chris Woakes, who made a surprise first appearance in almost two months after recovering from a heel injury.