A fabulous late flurry of runs ensured that Southern Brave would be victorious over Trent Rockets in the men’s Hundred match at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton last night.
The visitors, put into bat lost Alex Hales (8) and Tom Kohler-Cadmore (8) early but Dawid Malan was in his usual fine form hitting 59 off 41 balls before being bowled by Hogan who also dropped him earlier in the match.
By then, the Rockets had lost Samit Patel for a quick 21 but had past the hundred mark although good bowling late on by the current reigning 2021 Hundred champions left the Rockets on 138 with further wickets of Colin Munro (16) and Lewis Gregory (10) on the last ball of the innings.
In response, the Rockets started superbly as Sam Cook took the wicket of Sterling and Luke Wood bowled James Vince, both for ducks with the home score on 9 for 2.
Quinton de Kock gave resurgence with 24 runs from 23 balls before getting out cheaply to Gregory, but a stand of 73 by Alex Davies and Ross Whiteley swung the game in the Southern Brave favour and ensured that Trent Rockets would need to wait a little longer to qualify for a final three place.
Whitely eventually going for 30 with eleven balls remaining, by then the Brave would need just fifteen to level and reached target with five to spare as Tim David hit 19 off 6 balls with Davies reaching 51 from 43.
The win ensures the Brave are still within a chance of reaching finals day, whilst the Rockets in second must wait a little longer to see if they can still make it.
Trent with one game remaining must beat Welsh Fire on Monday to at least guarantee qualifying for the eliminator match, whilst relying on slip ups from London Spirit in their last two matches to have a shot at taking the league standings title by pipping them to first.
Also yesterday, the Rockets Women were well beaten by the Brave in the earlier match in Southampton as they could only reach 88 (losing eight wickets in the process) from their 100 balls.
In response, their hosts took just 56 balls for no loss of wickets to win comfortably and stay top of the division. Trent in fourth place have won two and lost three of their five games played. With one to play it’s looking highly unlikely they’ll qualify for the eliminator match ahead of finals day a week on Saturday.
*Main image @TrentBridge captain Lewis Gregory couldn’t save his side from defeat.