Vitality T20 Blast: Middlesex vs Hampshire Ben McDermott stars for Hampshire 

While Hampshire ruled Radlett owing to Ben McDermott's innings, Middlesex hardly looked to be playing cricket. They rarely got into the game with bat and ball.

Bowling first, Hampshire restricted Middlesex to 142, taking their seven wickets. They got a stable opening stand from Stephen Eskinazi and Max Holden to fetch 34 off 21. Max Holden scored the highest individual score of 35 for the team. Their middle and lower order couldn't stand Hampshire's bowlers. Except for Jack Davies' 34 and Martin Andersson's 25, the remaining line-up fell for a single-digit individual score. While all the bowlers were good in keeping Middlesex at backfoot, Liam Dawson was exceptional, returning with figures of 4-0-14-3. 

Ben McDermott and James Vince opened innings for Hampshire to chase the target of 142. While the target looked easy to chase, nobody would have imagined chasing it down in just 12 overs. That shows how mesmerizingly the batters played and how poor were Middlesex bowlers to the openers. They made an opening stand of 132 in 9.4 overs to break the record of Hampshire's opening T20 stand. While McDermott has been omitted from Australia's squad for Sri Lanka, McDermott played a statement inning, scoring 83 off 30 at a strike rate of 276.66. James Vince supported the swashbuckler with 54 runs from 37 balls. Bowlers lacked strategy and execution for McDermott as they were continuously bowling him short and straight. Also, he smashed 7 of the nine sixes into the square-leg arc, thus failing to defend the short boundaries of Radlett. 

A nine-wicket win with eight overs to spare, and now Hampshire has two back-to-back wins. Though Middlesex had a great start in the tournament, it appears to be a false dawn. Middlesex will look to revive against table-toppers Surrey on 9th June, whereas Hampshire will carry forward the winning momentum against Essex on 9th June 2022.