CB40 Final 2012: Jimmy Adams keeps his cool as Hampshire beat Warwickshire in last-ball thriller In the absence of someone with Bell's eminence, they all chipped in with the bat and they fielded better than Warwickshire to cover up for the loss of Danny Briggs to England in Sri Lanka. Hampshire's first-choice slow left-armer would have been invaluable on a pitch that encouraged spinners as the warm day wore on. For Hampshire, Michael Carberry was especially fine in the field - not least when catching Bell off a firm clip to deep square - and he set Hampshire on their way to a decent total with 35 off 31 balls. He will presumably be overlooked on Tuesday for England's Test party for India, but the decision will not be based on talent. Hampshire's captain, Jimmy Adams, was named Man Of The Match. After Carberry's initial burst, he sustained his county's innings by good placement and rotation of the strike, reaching 66 off 70 balls and setting the platform for the acceleration by Sean Ervine. Adams also took a fine catch at short extra-cover to dismiss his opposite number, Jim Troughton, and he kept his cool at the climax, or at any rate he appeared to, which is more than half the battle. With only seven runs needed by Warwickshire off the final over, bowled by Kabir Ali, singles were taken off the first two balls before Ian Blackwell was bowled having a needlessly ambitious swing at the third. But Adams thought the game was up when Neil Carter drove the fifth ball past extra-cover for four to level the scores. Warwickshire still needed one run to win, because they had lost more wickets and had to reach 245. It is a situation seldom practised at any level of cricket, and captains often set a field never seen on any other occasion, with fielders evenly spread out around the bat. But Adams looked as though he knew what he was doing, and he had a card up his sleeve in his wicketkeeper Michael Bates. Bates had already taken a very fine catch, standing up, when Tim Ambrose top-edged. He stopped Warwickshire's batsmen using their feet by standing up to the stumps, without letting through more than one bye. So when Kabir Ali bowled the final ball outside off stump, and Carter missed, Bates was on hand to prevent any thought of a bye. Seldom does a keeper have the last word, but Bates deserved it. A slight dampener, though, was that the crowd was only 16,000 so that Lord's was little more than half full. A beautiful day - something called a sprinkler was at work in the Nursery - yet the ground far from crammed. The crowds for the domestic cup final were around 25,000 through the last decade. The slump came when 50-over county cricket was abolished: in 2010 the cup-final crowd decreased to 13,952 and it has not recovered. One more reason why 40-over county cricket, when the rest of the world plays 50 overs, cannot be justified.