Wells propels Lancashire with bat and ball as Bears come up short

Lancashire 176 for 8 (Wells 66, Hasan 3-47) beat Birmingham Bears 168 for 6 (Hain 59, Wells 2-25) by eight runs

Early pacesetters Lancashire Lightning beat Birmingham Bears at fortress Emirates Old Trafford to stay top of the embryonic Vitality Blast North Group table, with Luke Wells to the fore.

Lightning just defended a 177 target to win by eight runs, sealing their third victory in four games as Wells opened with a career best-equalling 66 off 32 balls, then returned 2 for 25 with his legspinners and added two catches.

Bears missed the chance to leapfrog their hosts to the group’s summit, losing for the first time in three matches as they replied to 176 for 8 with 168 for 6 despite Sam Hain’s 59 off 44.

Lancashire are now unbeaten in 23 group fixtures at Emirates Old Trafford since the end of summer 2020, excluding matches where not a ball was bowled. Surrey did, however, win here in last summer’s quarter-final.

Wells clattered five early sixes before bowling Chris Benjamin to put the skids under Birmingham at 56 for 3 in the seventh over of their chase.

The tall left-hander, playing his 48th T20 match, lit up the first half of Lancashire’s innings with his flurry of sixes, including three successively over midwicket off Pakistan pacer Hassan Ali at the start of fourth over, which went for 27.

That gave Lightning, invited to bat on a used pitch, valuable momentum at 47 for 1 having only taken eight runs from the first two overs.

Wells only scored one off his first six balls yet reached his fifty off 22, taking Lancashire to 73 for 1 after six.

He dominated an 80-run stand inside six overs with captain Keaton Jennings from 18 for 1 in the third over. But Bears fought back superbly with four wickets for 30, starting with Jennings stumped off a leg-side wide from left-arm wristspinner Jake Lintott.

As spin put the squeeze on, Lintott also had Wells stumped by captain Alex Davies to finish with 2 for 29, while Danny Briggs got Tom Bruce and a brilliant George Garton throw running in from deep midwicket ran out Matty Hurst – Lancashire 128 for 5 in the 14th.

Hasan returned to get three wickets in the final over – Steven Croft, Chris Green and Luke Wood caught in the deep – as the hosts lost momentum.

But their score was still very competitive courtesy of Wells’ early fireworks, which felt like the exception rather than the norm on this sluggish surface.

Lightning quicks Mitchell Stanley and Luke Wood removed openers Davies and Rob Yates caught at third and deep square-leg respectively in the space of three balls to leave Bears 23 for 2 in the third over. Benjamin was then bowled trying to slog sweep Wells, and Bears were struggling.

They reached 76 for 3 after 10 overs, needing 101 more. England fringe quick Saqib Mahmood, playing his first T20 match in just over a year following injury, then had Dan Mousley caught at long-leg by action-man Wells – 76 for 4 in the 11th.

Bears then hit back, as they had done with the ball. Hain and Jacob Bethell shared 62 inside seven overs, the latter contributing 33 before falling caught behind off Wells.

At 138 for 5 in the 17th, Bears needed 39. But Hain, with a season’s best score in all formats to his name, then drilled Wood to Wells at mid-off – 147 for 6 with 11 balls left. That proved decisive, leaving Mahmood defending 24 off the last.

Vitality Blast