Northern Superchargers v London Spirit at Headingley august 13th ‘The Hundred’

Neil Whitaker reports

THE Northern Supercharges kept their hopes of reaching Saturday’s eliminator alive as they beat London Spirit by 21 runs DLS.



The Spirit's middle order was blown apart by Adil Rashid who took three wickets for 16 in his 20 balls as   Matt Critchley, Shimron Hetmyer and Andre Russell could only muster 11 runs between them.  Critchley was the first of Adil Rashid’s victims when he was bowled by a fast googly. Adil Rashid  got his second wicket  with a leg break that trapped Hetmyer leg before.  Although Hetmyer reviewed it the replay showed it to be plumb.   Bit hitting Russell was Adil Rashid’s final victim having  a big swing at Adil Rashid but missed the ball and was bowled.


Matty Short said: “I thought he was unbelievable and just gets the job done. If a couple of guys are getting hit  we put Rashid on, he always gets wickets and keeps the run rate down.”


Put into bat the London Spirit suffered an early loss with  nine on the board when   Michael Pepper got a leading edge to Reece Topley and the ball instead of going to mid-wicket went over long-on where  Mitchell Santner took a good running catch with the ball coming over his left shoulder.


Spirt’s captain Dan Lawrence tried to hook  Matty Potts but helped the ball to stumper  Nicholas Pooran who took a legside catch, a decision which didn’t please the Spirits captain.


After hitting Topley for a six over  square-leg, Keaton Jennings cut the next ball to Pat  Brown  on the third man boundary.


A seventh wicket partnership of 49 between Ravi  Bopara and Liam Dawson got the Spirit past the hundred mark. Dawson got his left leg out of the way to  Brown and smashed him over the long-off boundary for a six and then he edged Potts wide off Pooran as the ball ran to the third man boundary.  He was unbeaten on 27 while Bopara, who top scored with 31,was bowled by a yorker off the penultimate ball and Olly Stone was run out going for a single.


In their chase Short hit four fours out off Richard Gleeson’’s first five balls Not to be out done  Graham Clark clipped Stone off his for a big six over fine leg followed by a bigger six over square leg.  With Clark and Short getting boundaries with ease  the  London Spirt desperately  needed a wicket and they got it with Critchley’s first ball when Clark got a faint outside edge to stumper Pepper to almost silence.


When the rain came the Northern Supercharges were on 64 for one after 44 balls and the match was called off at 8.50.   Short said: “It’s always nice to contribute in some way either with the bat or ball. We are now waiting on the other two games to see what happens.


I had a couple of words with the umpire and he must have heard that there was rain coming and he said ‘25 balls make a game’ so we knew everything was fine so it was to spend some time in the middle.”


The Supercharges now have to wait on the results of the Trent Rockets v the Oval Invincibles and Southern Brave v Welsh Fire matches to see if they make it to the eliminator.

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