Glorious Glos 'snuck in through back door' - Payne

David Payne's haul of 33 wickets - tying the competion record - earned him the 2024 Vitality Blast player of the year award, after finishing top of the most valuable player rankings.

Gloucestershire were the unlikeliest of T20 Blast title contenders when this season's competition began in May.

They had never won the trophy in 20 years of trying, only made it to three previous Finals Days, reached just one final - and had not even got out of their group for the last three years.

With two games left in the South Group, making the last four looked a tall order. But five straight wins, all away from their Bristol headquarters, snatched a 'glorious' triumph for the 'glorious Glosters'.

Gloucestershire had to win their last two qualifying matches against Glamorgan at their Cheltenham College outground and then Middlesex in a game moved to Chelmsford - two victories which ironically edged out Essex, when they lost the following night to Hampshire.

Then came three wins in nine days at Edgbaston - the astonishing quarter-final win over Birmingham Bears, where they defended a total of 138, before Saturday's back-to-back eight-wicket victories over Sussex and Somerset.

"We snuck in through the back door really," said Gloucestershire's once-capped England one-day international left-arm paceman David Payne.

"A few things went our way but, when you get into the knock-outs, you feel it is anyone's to win. There was a real belief and confidence that we could do it."

'I have never felt better about my bowling'

Payne is now comfortably Gloucestershire's top wicket taker in T20 cricket, having claimed 196 in 143 matches spread over 14 years.

“I’ve never felt better with my bowling," said Payne, who gave up red-ball cricket in 2022. "I moved to a white-ball contract to look after my body and it was the best decision I’ve ever made."

He ended a memorable day at Edgbaston by finishing clear of Birmingham Bears' new England T20 international Dan Mousley and Essex's Michael Pepper to win the Professional Cricketers Association's 2024 Vitality Blast player of the year award, with 33 wickets.

Equalling the 33 taken by Alfonso Thomas for Somerset in 2010 as the most in an English domestic T20 season, he took 33 wickets at an average of 12.8 with an economy rate of just 6.29 - and won five individual 'most valuable player' awards.

But, despite taking 4-23 in the quarter-final, a miserly 1-9 in the semi-final (taking the key wicket of T20 top run scorer Daniel Hughes) and then 3-27 in the final, Payne was happier to highlight the team effort - especially the captaincy of Glos skipper Jack Taylor.

"Jack’s captaincy has been brilliant," he said.

"He's been outstanding. It's not an easy job but he can hold his head up high and be proud of the way he has led us. He deserves to know that."

Payne also felt that beating the Bears in Birmingham the previous Friday night, in front of a record crowd for a quarter-final, gave his team the belief that they could perform under pressure, especially under the Edgbaston lights.

"It was good to come here in the quarters," he said. "It helped familiarise us with the surroundings.

"There was a good crowd in that night so it had a kind of Finals Day vibe. We felt very comfortable by the final.

"You need your big players to stand up on nights like this, which is what happened. But all through the campaign our players have delivered performances. I could go through the side. Everyone has contributed.

"This won’t sink in for a while. I'm feeling a lot of emotion and a huge amount of pride for this group right now. The reason you stay at a club like Gloucestershire is for days like this because it means so much more.

"It's a strange feeling because a lot of the Somerset guys [Tom Kohler-Cadmore, Tom Abell, Roelof van der Merwe, Jake Ball and Benny Green] are my Welsh Fire team-mates in the Hundred.

"They and Surrey have set the bar high in T20 and we take immense pride from beating them."

David Payne's biggest wicket on Finals Day was the removal of Sussex's Australian danger man Daniel Hughes for just a single in the semi-final