Invincibles wrapped up a disappointing 2023 campaign with a thrilling 3-run win against Trent Rockets at The Oval on Monday, after racking up the highest total so far made at the ground in the Women’s Hundred – 155.
Many have been asking what has gone wrong for reigning champions Invincibles this season: despite retaining their core squad from the past two seasons, they had managed just two wins from seven matches prior to this game. The loss of Dane van Niekerk early on certainly hasn’t helped matters.
But on Monday it was her injury replacement Nadine de Klerk who took her chance to shine, striking 51* from 25 balls – the second fastest fifty in the Women’s Hundred (thanks Hypocaust for the stat) – in her first ever match at The Oval.
She was backed up by some beautifully clean six-hitting from Cordelia Griffith (23 off 16), and there was redemption, too, for Sophia Smale, who after a breakthrough season in 2022 has struggled somewhat with “second album syndrome”, but put on an excellent display, taking two for 26 and assisting in the run-out of Fran Wilson as Rockets failed to launch.
Invincibles’ innings was bookended by contrasting spells from left-arm seamer Alexa Stonehouse. Her first two sets reduced the home side to 30 for 2: she swung the ball through the defences of Lauren Winfield-Hill for a duck, before bowling Suzie Bates with a straight one in her next set. Marizanne Kapp then treated her with due respect, playing out three dots.
But at the death, with Stonehouse tasked with sending down balls 91 to 95, de Klerk had no such qualms. “It was hard to play spin and I knew I had to take someone down,” she said afterwards. And so she did. The set of “five” (actually a set of seven, containing two no-balls) began with a head-high full toss which de Klerk slammed for six over deep midwicket, and got worse from there, eventually costing 27 runs.
Not only is it the most expensive set ever bowled in three seasons of the Women’s Hundred, it almost broke Syd’s strike-rate chart!
Stonehouse is considered a future England prospect, but is only 18 years old and could have done with a bit of moral support. It was therefore slightly disappointing to see that none of her teammates (including her captain, Nat Sciver-Brunt) approached her for a quiet “shall-we-think-about-this” word until there were just two balls left in the set (and it was arguably too late to make much difference).
In reply, Lizelle Lee hefted her way to 61 from 33 balls, but Rockets’ chase was almost derailed by the lack of support at the other end. That included a very unconvincing 12-ball 9 from Harmanpreet Kaur, to top off what has been a poor tournament for her (72 runs in six innings). Has she been more affected by her impending two-match suspension in the wake of Bangladesh-Gate than she is letting on?
The match looked to be effectively over when Lee was run out off the 71st ball coming back for a second run by a brilliant direct hit-throwdown of the stumps from bowler Paige Scholfield, who broke out of her follow-through and dashed over to midwicket to retrieve the ball. Being brutally honest, though, it was also a poor call from Jo Gardner. “Maybe at the beginning of my innings that would have been two, but I was a little bit tired,” Lee said ruefully after the match.
There was very nearly a redemption arc for Stonehouse, who – with 18 needed off the final set – struck three boundaries in a row against Scholfield to get the equation down to five needed off the final ball. Finally, though, a good yorker from Scholfield sealed the deal for Invincibles.
De Klerk said after the match that despite spending three months in the UK this summer playing for The Blaze, she had actually been back home in South Africa when the phone call came (midway through a match!) asking if she would consider flying back to play in The Hundred.
“We had a cricket camp for South Africa so it was a bit of chaos to get over here,” she said. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Perhaps… although it’s also possible that her innings on Monday will see her snapped up as an overseas star in next year’s competition.
CRICKETher 