The 2012 FriendsLife T20 was the tenth edition of what would later become the

T20 Blast The T20 Blast, officially known as the Vitality Blast for sponsorship reasons, is a professional Twenty20 cricket league in England and Wales. The competition was established by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003. T20 Blast is t ...

, England's premier domestic

Twenty20 Twenty20 (abbreviated T20) is a shortened format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the county cricket, inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two t ...

competition. The competition ran from 12 June to 25 August 2012. The teams in the tournament remained the same as the previous season. The schedule of the tournament had been widely criticised the previous season and the ECB had decided to reduce the minimum number of days in which a county would play from 92 to 86 for 2012. This meant a change in format from 2 groups of 9, from which the top 4 would qualify to the quarter-finals, to an arrangement with 3 groups of 6. The format of the knock-out rounds (quarter-finals) remain unchanged. This reduces the number of matches in the competition from 151 to 97 in a return to the format of the

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

and

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

editions of the

Twenty20 Cup The T20 Blast, officially known as the Vitality Blast for sponsorship reasons, is a professional Twenty20 cricket league in England and Wales. The competition was established by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003. T20 Blast is ...

. Finals Day was at the

SWALEC Stadium The Cardiff Wales Stadium, which is part of Sophia Gardens Cardiff ( ; ), is a cricket stadium in Cardiff, Wales. It is located in Sophia Gardens on the River Taff. It is home to Glamorgan County Cricket Club and is listed as an international ...

Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...

for the first time. Hampshire Royals and

Yorkshire Carnegie Leeds Tykes (formerly Leeds RUFC, Leeds Carnegie and Yorkshire Carnegie) is an English rugby union club in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, playing in the National League 2 North. The club was founded as Headingley FC, but renamed in 1991 whe ...

, as the winners and runners-up of the tournament respectively, qualified for the

2012 Champions League Twenty20 The 2012 Champions League Twenty20 was the fourth edition of the Champions League Twenty20, an international Twenty20 cricket tournament. It was held in South Africa from 9 to 28 October 2012. Sydney Sixers won the tournament, defeating Highv ...

. In the quarter-final match between Sussex and Gloucestershire,

Scott Styris Scott Bernardo Styris (born 10 July 1975) is a New Zealand cricket commentator and former cricketer, who played all formats of the game. An allrounder, Styris played as an aggressive right-handed middle order batsman and a right-arm medium p ...

scored the equal third-fastest century in T20 history, after making 100 not out from 37 balls. In the same match, Gloucestershire's James Fuller conceded 38 runs from one over.

Format

The 18 teams are divided into three groups of six and each group plays a double

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament or all-play-all tournament is a competition format in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & ...

. The top two teams from each group and the top two third-placed teams qualify for the knockout stage: a three-round

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, ...

. The top team from each group and the best second-placed team will each play in a different quarter-final at their home ground. A free draw determines the placement of the remaining four teams and the semi-final and final match-ups.

Teams

Group stage

Midlands/Wales/West Division

Table

Results

Fixtures

North Division

Table

Results

Fixtures

South Division

Table

Results

Fixtures

:1. Game moved from

Nevill Ground The Nevill Ground is a cricket ground at Royal Tunbridge Wells in the English county of Kent. It is owned by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and is used by Tunbridge Wells Cricket Club in the summer months and by Tunbridge Wells Hockey Club i ...

Royal Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells (formerly, until 1909, and still commonly Tunbridge Wells) is a town in Kent, England, southeast of Central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the Weald, High Weald, whose sand ...

due to flooding.

Knockout stage

Quarter-finals

---- ---- ----

Semi-finals

----

Final

Statistics

Highest team totals

The following table lists the five highest team scores in the season.

Most runs

The top five highest run scorers (total runs) in the season are included in this table.

Highest scores

This table contains the top five highest scores of the season made by a batsman in a single innings.

Most wickets

The following table contains the six leading wicket-takers of the season.

Best bowling figures

This table lists the top five players with the best bowling figures in the season.

References

External links

Tournament Site – CricinfoFriends Life t20 Microsite
{{2012 English cricket season Friends Life t20 Friends Life t20

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

Friends Life t20