There were six seconds - six tantalising, agonising seconds - between the ball leaving the bat and lodging in the fielder's right hand as he tumbled onto his back. It was long enough for Northamptonshire's fans to experience a full range of emotions: hope, fear, panic, and finally relief, when they realised that the man steadying himself five yards off the long-on boundary was David Willey.
It was a high-pressure catch, but Willey was never dropping it. He lay prone with his arms outstretched, then sat upright and breathed deeply as though taking in the gravity of the moment. He had seen off Joe Weatherley for 75, and left Hampshire needing 15 off the last five balls with last man Sonny Baker on strike; when Ben Sanderson rearranged Baker's stumps, Willey sank to his knees in triumph.
It was the only one to feature on the scorecard, but this was not even Willey's best catch of the day. Hours earlier, in the first semi-final, Willey had sealed another scrappy defence against Somerset with an athletic relay effort, flinging himself over the boundary as he ran around from long-on and lobbing the ball back to Saif Zaib. He may have turned 36 this year, but Willey is a phenomenal athlete.
He was fired up throughout Finals Day, his desperation to drag his team to a third T20 title evident. He laid into their "s***" semi-final batting and suggested they were at least 15 runs light but was riled by what he perceived to be complacent body language from Somerset and came out firing, removing Tom Banton first-ball and finishing his four overs with 3 for 17.
He could not get going with the bat against Hampshire in the final, and his dismissal precipitated a Baker-inspired collapse of five wickets for two runs. But he struck first-ball again to remove Toby Albert and juggled his bowlers expertly through the chase to squeeze Hampshire, pegging them back with regular wickets to seal a nerve-jangling 14-run win in an epic final.
This was a full-circle moment for Willey, his career now bookended by Northants T20 triumphs. He was 23 when he announced himself as a future England allrounder, sealing the 2013 final with a hat-trick after belting 60 off 27 against Surrey; 13 years on, he is a retired international whose eye for detail, professionalism and sheer bloody-mindedness mark him out as one of the outstanding leaders in English cricket.
Between those two wins, Willey lived through a turbulent, 116-cap England career. He became a regular, lost his place for the 2019 World Cup to Jofra Archer's 11th-hour call-up, forced his way back in, got his redemption with a winner's medal at the 2022 T20 World Cup, then retired as a scorned man at the 2023 World Cup, having missed out on a central contract.
Willey had left Northants by the time they won their second T20 title in 2016, moving to Yorkshire to further his England ambitions, and it must have stung him to miss out. But since his return as captain, Northants have improved with every year: group stages in 2023, losing quarter-finalists in 2024, losing semi-finalists last season, and now champions again.
This was a record-equalling third Blast title, a remarkable achievement for one of the least-resourced counties in the country. Northants' turnover last year was just over £6 million, around one-tenth of Surrey's, yet they have consistently overachieved in a volatile format. "We're a small club, small budget, but we play big," coach Darren Lehmann beamed.
This was a genuine team effort. Chris Lynn had a pain-killing injection on the morning of Finals Day after being struck on the toe in the quarters, and top-scored in the semi, while Ricardo Vasconcelos played the best innings of his T20 career in the final, doubling his previous high score for the season with 88.
Nathan McSweeney's quick 30 in the final made use of the powerplay, and his outfielding was exceptional. Lewis McManus took a stunning one-handed catch to dismiss Will Smeed in the semi. Calvin Harrison bowled the ball of the tournament to Tristan Stubbs - pitching leg, hitting the top of off stump - and Ben Sanderson, reinvented as a death bowler, nailed his trademark wide yorkers throughout.
Luke Procter - nicknamed "Mongrel" by Willey - only played once in the group stages but was an inspired conditions-based pick ahead of George Scrimshaw on Finals Day. He was out first-ball in the semi and Smeed belted his first over for 28, but he returned to dismiss Daniel Sams at the death against Somerset, and his dead-eye run-out of Liam Dawson in the final changed the game.
James Sales, the junior man in an experienced squad at 23, was their top wicket-taker in his first full Blast campaign. On T20 debut as a teenager, he was belted for 34 runs in an over by Paul Stirling at Edgbaston; four years later, he returned 4 for 41 across eight overs on Finals Day, including the vital wicket of James Vince in the final.
Willey's own first-team debuts 17 years ago came about in part because Sales' father David, a club legend, was out injured; Sales senior started playing shortly after Willey's dad Peter retired in the early 1990s. "It's a big family club," Lehmann said. "It's nice for blokes to understand the players who have been before them, the history of the club, and the history of the town itself."
It is Willey who brings them all together. He is the perfect Blast player: a top-four batter who opens the bowling, fields in the hotspots, leads from the front and drags his team-mates along with him. "We had to scrap and fight, and I feel like that's the Dave Willey nature and style of cricket," Lynn said. "We followed suit, and believed in our skipper."
Despite some shared attributes, the team is almost unrecognisable from the 2016 vintage, described by their own coach as "big lads" and "chubsters" while placing a heavy emphasis on boundary-hitting. Lynn said that Willey and Lehmann had "nailed us" on preparation and recovery; Willey, who is largely teetotal, said that he would celebrate with a sparkling water.
Willey will spend the next month playing for London Spirit in the Hundred, a franchise co-owned by the MCC and a consortium of tech billionaires. He is a consummate professional, but there is no way that it can mean as much to him as this triumph, celebrating at Edgbaston with little old Northants' "Shoe Army" and belting out The Fields Are Green after lifting the trophy.
The Blast is not what it once was and has struggled for attention this summer, but Finals Day remains one of the great occasions in English cricket and serves as a reminder of county cricket's enduring value every year. There is no better embodiment of that than David Willey, the King of Northampton who returned to reclaim his crown.