Grace Ballinger, The Blaze's left-arm seamer, looks at Women's T20 Blast Finals Day which takes place at The Oval on Friday.
The summer of 2026 has already been a colossal one for English cricket.
Fans all over the country have been engulfed, often divided, by mid-match international retirements, women's T20 World Cup and Test defeats, and currently, a competitive white-ball series for the men's side against India.
All the while, domestic cricket has continued, sometimes out the limelight, but this weekend it comes to the fore with the finals of both the men's and women's T20 Blast competitions.
On Friday the top four women's teams of the 2026 campaign battle for silverware at The Oval, with Edgbaston hosting the men's Finals Day 24 hours later.
This is the second women's Finals Day since the women's domestic game went fully professional, and two of last years three qualifying teams (Surrey and The Blaze) will return to The Oval once again.
The 2025 Finals Day contained only three teams, with the table-toppers automatically qualifying for the final. This year there are four teams, the schedule mirroring that of the men's competition.
In a previous article, I wrote that I think that four teams reaching Finals Day in a nine team league (compared to 18 counties in the men's Blast), is at least one too many.
I therefore am relieved that The Blaze - my team - finished third and not fourth!
We will play last summer's champions, Surrey, in the opening semi-final, whilst 2026 table-toppers Hampshire will face Durham (who make it out of the group stages for the first time in any competition) in the afternoon.
The final is then scheduled for that evening at 18:45 BST.
In the men's competition, Finals Day has been moved from September to mid-summer, immediately following the group stages and quarter-finals - a welcome change.
This now means both the women's and the men's T20 champions will conclude before the scene of domestic cricket changes for the Hundred.
During the Hundred, the women's (professional) county game pauses, while for the men, the One-Day cup competition begins.
I have certainly enjoyed the group stages of this year's Blast.
It has been a successful one personally, and overall, a successful one for The Blaze.
We won eight group games out of twelve, the same amount of games won as Hampshire and Surrey, who came top and second in the table.
However we are chasing further success than just reaching Finals Day.
We want to make amends after losing the semi-final in 2025, and push for silverware.
Finals Day works that top of the table plays fourth, and second play third, which in my opinion seems the most logical way to manage four teams.
Surrey once again will have a slight home advantage, playing at their own ground, and it remains to be seen if England players will be available.
Most England players did not feature in the group stages at all, following a busy international summer with a T20 World Cup and one-off Test match against India.
Finals Day presents the unique prospect in professional cricket of playing two games in one day.
Players are often divided over whether or not it is better to play in the morning or afternoon semi-final.
The argument for the morning game is that you have time to recover, and for the afternoon, the idea is that you take momentum from your game straight into the final.
I'm not sure what my preference is, as I've only ever experienced playing in the first game in a four team Finals Day.
It was on this day The Blaze won our first trophy, the Charlotte Edwards T20 Cup in 2024, which was the women's professional T20 competition before regions aligned to counties.
Hopefully this stands us in good stead for this year's final, although last time it was certainly a long day.
We arrived at the ground at around 9am, and probably didn't leave until gone 10:30pm, and during this time you can not leave the player and match official area or access your phone.
But that long day is more than worthwhile when you leave with a trophy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/womens-england-twenty20/scores-fixtures
Surrey and Blaze claim wins before T20 Blast finals day
This year's competition was unique in the sense that there were so many players missing at different times.
International players were vacant for much of the competition, most notably, English and Scottish players, whilst many teams also lost domestic players for a period due to an England A series v India A.
I myself missed three Blast fixtures playing in this.
For us at the Blaze, we rarely had our full strength XI available all at the same time, which meant constantly changing line-ups and team dynamics.
We even lost our captain Kirstie Gordon to Scotland duty, so our vice Marie Kelly took the reins in her absence.
I think it speaks volumes of us as a team that we had so many players missing at different times, yet we still found ways to win.
It was also nice to see some younger players stepping up in absence of some senior players. For example, young slow left-armer Maria Andrews, and all-rounder Prisha Thanawala.
The back-end of the group stages was a busy one, with The Blaze playing five games in the space of 10 days.
Our final fixture was against Yorkshire on Sunday, meaning there are four days between the final group fixture and Finals Day.
This is a rare, albeit short, mid-season break, and I think it will be helpful.
It felt as if there were a lot of tired bodies and minds floating around for our final game.
The build up to Friday is essentially fine tuning.
We were given Monday and Tuesday to rest - or in my case, get this article written!
The Oval on Thursday.
Our head coach talks about getting to Finals Day as "getting on the dance floor".
Finals Days, for me, are the best part of playing professional cricket, and some previous ones I look back on fondly as some of the best days of my career.
I look on to Friday with excitement, with the prospect of beating last year's champions and getting into the final.
We've made it to the dance floor, now it's time to pull out our best dance moves.
