SC_Bear, yes I agree that a good group campaign can be totally undone by one bad performance, Hampshire won the T20 title in 2010 after losing 8 of the 16 games played and scraping through by 0.2 of a net run-rate. Then they beat a certain county from the Midlands (who waltzed through their group finishing top) to eliminate them in the quarter finals. And the point you make about the RL cup is something that I would like to see in the T20, reward the teams who finish top, they are there for a reason, they have bettered everyone else.

Certainly makes sense if they're only going to show 2 QF's live in future.

The other way is to use a system similar to the Big Bash and have a preliminary final between the two group winners - this season that would've been Somerset v Warwickshire. Winner of that goes straight to finals day. Loser gets another chance as they play in the elimination games (like quarter final but only need three of them) to see which three sides join the winner of the first game

Sounds complicated but it rewards group winners with two bites at reaching Finals Day

The Big Bash is a skip fire but it's system of rewarding the best performing sides is entirely sensible.

Or you could have both group winners automatically qualifying for finals day, 3rd and 4th play each other from the other group, then the winner of those two matches play 2nd place for a spot at finals day. Really incentivises finishing top then. Keeps the same number of matches as now too

I like any of these options. It does seem as though we now have a legacy qualification method tied to a broadcast deal that Sky has gone cool on. If they could find a way of keeping 4 qualification games whilst rewarding the group winners with automatic progression to finals day I think they'd find little resistance.

The posts above show that it's possible to come up with a formula that:

• rewards the top teams in each group
• keeps as many teams as possible in with a chance for as long as possible
• allows for enough games at the knock-out stages to please fans and the TV companies
  All we need to do now is persuade the ECB to implement these ideas.

I've had time to reflect in Thursdays disappointment and I can't add much to what's already been said.
A few reasons why it didn't go our way. Ithink we were too preoccupied with trying to hit the short boundary. We badly missed Briggs to add some control, they targeted Mousley and Maxwell to great effect. We need some quality white ball pace options and Hassan was a big miss. Having said that, I like Drakes and he did all that was asked with bat and ball (and more in the field).
I hope Drakes can be persuaded to be part of the ODC squad because he offers something different as a left armer, we haven't had that since Ronnie Barker left.
Fingers crossed we can have a good go in the ODC and have a day out at Trent Bridge in September.