Vince told BBC Radio Solent.<\/a><\/p>\n“Anyone that’s in the competition at this stage is obviously a good side and playing good cricket, and they have a really well balanced side.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully if we put in another performance like tonight then it will be good enough for us to have another crack in the final.<\/p>\n
“It’s big to make it back for Finals Day personally, I’m not getting any younger and it’s always a special day to be a part of, it’s why some of the older guys keep coming back and I’m delighted to be back.”<\/p>\n
Hampshire lost the toss and batted first at a quieter Utilita Bowl than normal, a result of lower numbers in attendance after the match was brought forward because of England’s World Cup semi-final later in the evening. <\/p>\n
Openers Vince – who has not played red-ball cricket since 2024 – and Toby Albert got off to a strong start, forging a partnership of 60 before Albert was dismissed for 22.<\/p>\n
Vince as then dropped on 46 and went on to punish Essex for the lapse, reaching his hundred from 43 balls. <\/p>\n
Hampshire ended their innings on 211-3 and then bowled well to limit the Eagles to 136-9 in reply. <\/p>\n
“It was one of those days where everything seemed to go right and a fairly stress-free win in the end,” Vince added.<\/p>\n
“I’m delighted to be at Finals Day and I felt good out there, coming into the quarter finals and knockout cricket it’s good to make a contribution and hopefully we can take this forward into Saturday.<\/p>\n
“A couple of the guys missed out last year like Hilts (Hilton Cartwright) and it’s such a good day, I’m glad we’re there and with an opportunity to win the competition.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hampshire’s T20 Blast captain James Vince believes semi-final opponents Notts Outlaws will provide a “tough test” at Edgbaston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-694593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}