This year’s edition of The Hundred got underway on Tuesday with the derbies between London Spirit and Oval Invincibles. Yesterday saw the fourth set of fixtures meaning that all eight sides have been in action once. As I type this the Oval Invincibles women are in action against Manchester Originals women, the first fixture of an action packed day. Yesterday Birmingham Phoenix played host to Trent Rockets, and the women’s fixture to which the rest of this post is devoted happened first as is standard in The Hundred.
THE SIDES
Birmingham Phoenix lined up as follows: Georgia Voll, Emma Lamb, *Ellyse Perry, +Amy Jones, Sterre Kalis, Ailsa Lister, Em Arlott, Millie Taylor, Megan Schutt and Hannah Baker.
Trent Rockets opted for an XI of Bryony Smith, Grace Scrivens, Natalie Sciver-Brunt, *Ash Gardner, Heather Graham, Emma Jones, +Natasha Wraith, Alana King, Alexa Stonehouse, Kirstie Gordon and Cassidy McCarthy.
THE MATCH
Birmingham Phoenix won the toss and opted to bat first. Voll and Lamb began impressively and at the end of the opening 25 ball Power Play (only two fielders allowed out deep) Phoenix were 36-0, Voll 19, Lamb 14. Alana King, the great Aussie leg spinner, came on immediately the Power Play was done and her second ball bowled her compatriot Voll for 19. Perry now joined Lamb, and played a fine support role while Lamb hit top form with a vengeance. A time out was taken at 48 balls into the innings, with score 77-1, of which Lamb’s share was 48. At the halfway point it was 78-1. Early in the second half of the innings Lamb reached 50, off her 28th ball, having struck eight fours along the way. While boundaries are always important the real key to Phoenix’s strong progress was that there were few dot balls. From this high water mark wickets began to fall, but after 75 balls, just about to enter the so-called ‘death balls’ Phoenix were 106-4, having scored 70-4 from the middle part of their innings. When they reached the 90 ball mark with 132 on the board a 150+ total would still have been the goal, but Rockets bowled well from balls 91 to 97 inclusive, though a big finish from Phoenix still got them to 148-5. Lister had scored 21 not out of 17, and Marie Kelly, largely responsible for the final flourish referred to, has 23 not out from just 10 balls. King, as befits her status, was the only multiple wicket taker, but she would have been disappointed to have conceded as many as 30 from her allocation of 20 balls.
Bryony Smith started impressively for Rockets, but the 21 year old Scrivens struggled badly, and her dismissal for 2 (8), which made it 35-1 from 24 balls was probably a relief even to her. At the end of their Power Play Rockets were 36-1, the same run tally but one wicket worse than Phoenix. In spite of the clear fact that they had done less well in this phase than had Phoenix Michael Carberry, supposedly ‘expert summariser’ on the radio (in his playing days he was a rather stodgy opener, not perhaps an appropriate choice to be making expert comments on the game’s most frenetic format) said that he thought Rockets were ahead of the game. Whatever may have been the case going into the middle phase, by the end of it no one could have been in any doubt who was ahead of the game. By then Rockets were 91-4, needing 58 from the last 25 balls at 2.32 per ball (11.60 per set of five, which equates to 13.92 per over in other formats), and had scored 55-3 in the middle phase, compared to Phoenix’s 70-4 in the same period. The one hope for Rockets lay in the fact that Nat Sciver-Brunt was still at the crease and was batting superbly. By the time 10 balls remained the Rockets needed 27 to win. Over the next six deliveries Millie Taylor effectively settled the match. First of all she conceded just seven runs from her own last five balls of the match, meaning that she had 1-22 from her 20 balls. Then off the the 96h ball of the innings, with Em Arlott bowling to close out the match she took a superb catch to dismiss Sciver-Brunt for 64, comfortably the highest individual score of the game, and made off a mere 40 balls. That left Rockets needing 20 off four balls to win the match, and at no time did it look remotely probably that they would do it. The final margin was 11 runs (note the importance of that 15 run gap between what the sides scored in the middle part of their innings). Phoenix had won the Power Play by virtue of not losing a wicket themselves while Rockets did, totally bossed the middle phase – 70 to 55 – and narrowly lost the ‘death balls) – 42 to 46. As well as Taylor who I have already mentioned another youngster, 21 year old leg spinner Hannah Baker, had 2-18 from 15 balls. Emma Lamb’s 55 (32), the chief reason for Phoenix’s substantial total, earned her Player of the Match. A mention also for the fielding of Ailsa Lister – three of the first four Rockets wickets went to catches taken by her. Scorecard here.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
pho
aspiblog 