The unforgiving minutes

There's nothing like a few games of cricket to get you pondering the big questions. Is the universe benign, for example? Or is it hostile? Or is it simply implacable? Of course, in the wider context of events on this mad, bad planet, such queries are irrelevant, but even so, in a little green corner of Hampshire yesterday, for those of us lucky enough to be absorbed by our pointless and beautiful sport, they were worth asking.

The answers for those contesting T20 finals day were many and varied. For Nottinghamshire, the best side there, robbed by rain that seemed to have been turned on by some kind of malicious timer switch, it was undoubtedly hostile. For Hampshire, the winners who tried, at the death, their very best to throw it all away, it was a fateful repayment on the loving - if ambitious - investment in the county by Rod Bransgrove. And for Kieron Pollard, the ur-T20 symbol of the age, holder of a reversal-of-fortune catch one moment and recipient of a dramatic, game-ending injury the next, it was a universe unswayed by triumph or disaster.

The demise of Notts was almost comical. The rain that ended their semi-final began to fall heavily at the precise moment they fell behind the Duckworth-Lewis rate, and persisted only to the minute at which it was appointed that the game be abandoned. As noted before, Duckworth-Lewis does not work well for T20. Over the shortened distance there's not yet enough data to reflect what the usual outcome of a game would be. In this case, the batting side would have won seven or eight times out of ten.

Having sneaked through, Somerset lacked the bowling power to halt Hampshire's charge, only for the ghost of a ludicrous collapse against the same opposition earlier this year to haunt Dominic Cork's unlikely lags. Folding like a pack of cards, with a runner on for the last ball, a manic leg bye was enough. By that time, Kieron Pollard was in an ambulance, brained by an apologetic Corky. Fate was running wild.

Numbercrunching

Combined age of Surrey's T20 middle order: 140

[Ramps 40, Symonds 35, Younis 32 [allegedly] Usman Afzaal 33]

Combined number of runs scored by them in Surrey's first two T20 games: 49

ECB: Right on the case

The ECB have placed some press ads ahead of the domestic season's Twenty20 Cup, which starts in June. Great idea, given that events in the Caribbean are still buzzing around in the minds of the new generation of cricket followers.

So which members of England's World Cup winning squad who'll be available to play did the ECB marketing team select to get the kids excited? Lumb? Kieswetter? Wright? Yardy? Bopara?

The names on today's Observer ad: Symonds, Gibbs, Vaas.

Good job, boys...

Not the IPL news

Virender Sehwag has signed for Northamptonshire for the T20 Cup this summer. Alright, it's a bit like Robert Plant joining Saxon, but it confirms an undeniable trend: There's no IPL in England, but there's an approximation of it, built by stealth.

The rosters aren't complete yet, but joining Viru will be Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq and Ajantha Mendis [Hants], Adam Gilchrist [Middx], Shaun Tait [Glamorgan], Cameron White and Keiron Pollard [Somerset], Tillakaratne Dilshan, Dwayne Smith and Yassir Arafat [Sussex], Herschelle Gibbs [Yorkshire], Kumar Sangakkara [Lancs], David Hussey and Dirk Nannes [Notts] and little Brad Hodge [Leicestershire].

Wonder how long it will be before Giles Clarke starts taking the credit?