NOTTINGHAM, England, CMC – West Indies all-rounder Darren Sammy nearly grabbed a hat-trick as he helped Nottinghamshire defeat Durham by 15 runs in the English T20 Blast here Sunday.
Chasing Notts’ 175 for seven, Durham came up short at 160 for six off 20 overs, with Sammy taking two for 31 from his four overs of medium pace.
His two wickets came off the two final deliveries of the 11th over when he removed Calum MacLeon who made 32 and former England captain Paul Collingwood who made 30, to break a threatening 47-run, third wicket stand.
John Hastings then successfully negotiated Sammy’s first ball of the 13th over, to deny him the hat-trick.
Gordon Muchall then struck an unbeaten 42 from 30 balls but it was not enough to deny Notts.
“I don’t think I’ve ever taken a hat-trick. I’ve had two in two balls on a few occasions so a hat-trick would have been nice, but the main thing was that we won with a team effort,” Sammy said afterward.
“Collingwood and MacLeod were starting to build a partnership like (Riki) Wessels and (Samit) Patel [in the Notts innings] so it was crucial to get the breakthrough and we did that.”
Earlier, Sammy struck a cameo 19 off 13 balls with a four and a six as Notts finished their innings with a flourish after being sent in at Trent Bridge.
Opener Wessels top-scored with 67 from 41 balls and shared exactly a hundred for the third wicket with Patel whose 46 came from 39 deliveries.
Sammy was the only other batsman in double figures.
“That partnership between Wessels and Patel really set up the game and then we had contributions down the order,” said Sammy.
