Northamptonshire Steelbacks won the T20 Blast for the third time, and no county has won it more often. No mean achievement for a team that, as their captain David Willey says, comes from “little old Northampton”.

Willey led from the front as a fielder and by taking a wicket with the first ball in Somerset’s innings in the semi-final, and again in Hampshire’s innings in the final. His Northants side, batting first in both matches, had not done it very well, so they needed the impetus of those two first-ballers.

And at the end of a very long day – one of lowish scoring but which was no less interesting for that – who should find himself under an enormous hit by Joe Weatherley, who had conducted Hampshire to a win in their semi-final and was on course to do so in the final? Yes, David Willey. The white ball soared higher than the cranes that are making Edgbaston into England’s biggest stadium, and the fielder at long-on had suddenly to back-pedal but, as it was Willey, he put everything into the catch, fell back to absorb the impact, and clung on.

Amid the blandness which is the staple fare of cricketers in press conferences, Willey’s reaction stood out after Northants had beaten Somerset in the first semi-final. “As we were going out for that second half, they looked like they had just won it, and that’s like a red rag to a bull to me,” Willey said. “Coming from little old Northampton, I don’t like that. It really got me revved up.” And there he remained, revved up until the end.

One strange feature of Willey’s captaincy was that, while for most of the day he demonstrated all the pugnacity of his father Peter, the former England batsman, he chose to demote himself from No 4 in the semi to five in the final. Thanks to a fine 88 by the stocky left-hander Ricardo Vasconcelos, Northants were on top of Hampshire, only for Lewis McManus to come in at No 4 – a fine wicketkeeper but no hitter – and they lost impetus as their innings went on, to the extent they lost their last eight wickets for 31 runs.

Sonny Baker pegged Northants back by taking three wickets in their 19th over and five wickets for 21 in all – the first five-wicket haul ever recorded on finals day. It had been switched from September to mid-season, and in the middle of a heatwave the dry surface was no belter but conducive to cutters, which tended to grip and stand up from a length. The leg-spin of Calvin Harrison was effective too, in enabling Northants to defend two modest targets, and he summoned up the perfect leg-break to bowl Hampshire’s danger-man Tristan Stubbs.

Baker, however, with no time for subtleties, bowled fast, full and straight to clean up the Northants innings and give Hampshire only 170 to chase.

The ball did not seem to come on to the bat of anyone all day apart from those of Vasconcelos and Weatherley, who had contributed an unbeaten 88 to the partnership with James Vince which had knocked out Nottinghamshire. Weatherley, though 29, has never nailed championship cricket, averaging 24 in this format, but he drove the white ball with the same sort of hauteur as Vince and propelled Hampshire towards what would have been their fourth T20 title.

James Sales did for Northants much the same as Baker had done for Hampshire, then Liam Dawson embarked on a counter-punch with Weatherley that brought Hampshire’s target down from 58 off five overs to a manageable 41 off four. Luke Procter had been pulverised for 28 in one over by Somerset’s Will Smeed, yet back he came resiliently to run out Dawson (35 off 18) in his follow-through.

With Hampshire needing 22 off two, Procter bowled James Fuller and Scott Currie when the former at least should have been keeping Weatherley company. Thus Weatherley was left to orchestrate 15 off the final over, and high though he smote, Willey absorbed the ball like a sand-bag.

Craig Overton had dragged Somerset over the line in their quarter-final – very few T20 games have ever been won from such a hopeless position as 82-8 like they were against Yorkshire – and he was only a few inches away from doing the same in the semi against Northants. But Willey this time took wings at long-on to stop the ball going for six and tossed the ball back, when he was in mid-air and over the boundary, for Saif Zaib to dive and complete Overton’s dismissal: two fine catches off a single ball, the stuff of champions.

As all four semi-finalists had won this T20 competition before, Derbyshire, Durham, Glamorgan and Yorkshire remain the only four counties not to have won it.