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Southern Brave 111 for 5 (Miller 39*, Smith 36) beat London Spirit 105 (Bairstow 56, Archer 4-9, Stoinis 3-17) by five wickets
Inserted by Chris Jordan, Spirit reached 52 for 2 at halfway with Bairstow struggling for fluency on a tricky pitch for a run-a-ball 25. Adil Rashid had Liam Livingstone caught at deep cover to go past Tymal Mills and become the leading wicket-taker in the Hundred men’s competition history as he finished with figures of 2 for 17.
Bairstow reached his half-century from 40 balls but was then part of a spectacular Spirit collapse, with Archer and Stoinis both bagging two-in-two to wrap up the innings with eight balls left unused.
With just 106 required for victory, Brave were obvious favourites but the chase wasn’t an easy one. They lost Ben McKinney and Nikhil Chaudhary to David Willey early, the former for a first-ball duck. Despite the loss of wickets, Jamie Smith dominated the early exchanges, motoring to 36 and launching a maximum into the scoreboard, before falling lbw to James Coles.
Adam Zampa was economical through the middle and saw the back of Moeen Ali – who’d come into the Brave squad to replace the injured Thomas Rew – and then Stoinis was run-out at the non-striker’s end to leave the score 60 for 5 with 46 still required from 48.
The South African duo of David Miller and Tristan Stubbs came together and steadily chipped away at the remaining runs, Miller clearing the ropes to finish 39 not out as Brave got home with three balls to spare.
It was a crucial win for Brave, who are still right in the mix for a spot in the Eliminator, while for Spirit, a lot will have to go right now for them to progress into the knockout stages.
Archer, the Meerkat Match Hero, said: “I’m delighted that we got the win today. It’s the first time I’ve got more than two wickets for the tournament. Everyone’s been bowling well. We’ve not been getting huge amounts of wickets but we’ve definitely been keeping the runs down.”
On chasing a small total, he added: “You always think that it’s going to be an easy game, but we seem to always make it hard for ourselves.”
