Willey admitted Northants had played “some dumb cricket” after only scraping their way to 143 all out in the first semi-final at Edgbaston. But he set the tone with the ball, striking with his first delivery on the way to figures of 3 for 17, and then contributing an entry to the all-time Finals Day highlights reel with a flying relay catch at long-on to help dismiss Craig Overton.

Somerset were attempting to become the first county to defend the domestic T20 title, as well as chasing a third success in the last four years, but they ended up falling 17 runs short. Victory for Northamptonshire was particularly satisfying after they had been on the receiving end of two thumping defeats – by 105 runs and seven wickets – against Somerset in the group stage, despite topping the Central/West Group.

“I think for two-and-a-half games we’ve been absolutely diabolical against them, and we’ve turned it on in the last little hour and a half,” Willey said.

“Look, do you know what? There was a moment I walked out there, as we were going out for that second half, and they looked like they thought they’d just won it. That’s what it looked like to me, and that’s like red rag to a bull to me. Coming from little old Northampton, I don’t like that. It really got me revved up and generally speaking when I’m revved up I play my best cricket, so it was very satisfying.”

Asked about Northants’ batting, Willey summed it up as “s***… that wasn’t the plan”, saying that they felt at halfway they were 15-20 runs short and needed a complete performance to defend their total.

“It wasn’t an easy pitch but we, including myself, played some dumb cricket at times. Runs on the board in knockout cricket, we knew we were going to have to have a complete performance in the second half, and bar ‘s dropped catch at the back end there it was a complete performance pretty much.”

“Everyone stood up. The chat before the game was about being brave, whether you’ve got bat or ball in hand, you be the one today. I think everyone tried to do that today, even with the bat. We misread conditions with the bat, which left us short, but we made up for it.”

Banton’s injury scare

Banton was released from England’s ODI squad to play for Somerset on Finals Day after missing out on selection for the first two matches of their series against India, but hurt his quad while making an excellent stop on the midwicket boundary in the 15th over of Northants’ innings. He immediately went off for treatment, with Tom Abell coming on as a sub fielder.

Somerset briefly considered asking for a runner, and promoted him to open the batting (he came in at No. 3 in their quarter-final win over Yorkshire) to minimise the volume of running he would have to do. He was out first-ball in any case, edging Willey behind as Somerset fell short in pursuit of 144.

“It was a bit chaotic, to be honest,” Jason Kerr, Somerset’s head coach, said. “Bants has got a bit of a quad strain through the fielding. At one stage we were going to have a runner.

“You haven’t got a huge amount of time in the turnaround [between innings] but we were trying to find the best place for him to bat to limit the amount of running that he may have to do.

“He was heavily strapped, so we made the natural choice [which] was to stick him up top and give him the freedom [to attack] but he obviously got a good one first up.”

The injury effectively rules Banton out of Sunday’s ODI series decider, though he was unlikely to play in any case given the tight turnaround from Finals Day. It also makes him a doubt for the start of the Hundred, with the Rockets – who retained him for £225,000 – due to play their first match of the season against Birmingham Phoenix on Friday.

Kerr said that he was “incredibly disappointed” by Somerset’s failure to chase 144, but said that the semi-final was a reflection of their hit-and-miss T20 season. “At the halfway stage, we were in a great position,” he said, “but the batting performance was probably a bit more of a reflection of how our campaign has been.

Somerset were the reigning champions and hoped to become the first team to successfully defend the Blast title. “It’s frustrating,” Kerr said. “That was certainly the aim coming in, after the success of Wednesday night and [with] the opportunity to defend it, but you need to play much better than we did today to do that.”