MI London kept alive their extremely slim qualification chances with a narrow win against London Spirit at Lord’s.

MI and Spirit are now in a very similar pickle, requiring a very specific sequence of results to make it through to the knockouts. Unless Phoenix beat SunRisers tomorrow they are both out; and if that happened they’d still need SunRisers v Fire to be rained-off (or a tie), not to mention a massive turnaround in their Net Run Rate in their last two group games.

And after the way both sides batted today, that doesn’t feel likely – despite the hottest, driest summer this country has ever known, I’d still rate the chances of SunRisers v Fire getting rained off as somewhat higher!

You’d be hard-pressed to describe it as a “good” game, but in front of another very decent crowd at Lord’s – over 15,000 turned up in time for the women’s game – at least it was an exciting one, going down to the final ball; though arguably it was the penultimate ball that was key. With Spirit needing 5 off 2, and the keeper standing back after MI had been subject to a fielding penalty, Deandra Dottin could easily have run a single that would have left Katie George needing to get a 4 off the final delivery. But Dottin chose to stand her ground, meaning she effectively had to hit it for 6; and with no short boundary today (unlike the game here last weekend) that was a bridge too far – she was run out looking for a second, meaning 17 wickets fell across the 200 balls… and largely not from brilliant bowling.

Put in to bat, MI were 23-5 at one stage, after Charlie Dean had taken 3 wickets in balls – the Spirit captain, who was the pick of the bowling across both teams today, finding enough spin to account for Hollie Armitage, Nic Carey and Alice Monaghan. At this point, everyone in the press box was typing “Lowest score in the Women’s Hundred” into Google; but after a summer which has almost (but not quite) rivalled Laura Wolvaardt’s for disappointment, Melie Kerr finally came to the party, hitting 69 off 41 balls to give MI the big finish they needed to make a game of it.

With wickets falling around her, Kerr waited until the last 10 balls to hit the “Launch” button, hitting 3 6s off Charlie Dean in the penultimate set. It was risky – she was almost caught off the first of those – but it was what needed to be done; and given how close the game turned out to be, it was the difference between staying alive in the competition and going out.

Although I’m not unaware of my reputation for a degree of cynicism, believe it or not I came to Lord’s today hoping to write about a good game of cricket. But with just 5 of the 20 players who batted today making double-figures (and one of them was Dottin, who made 11 and ended up making a terrible decision which all-but guaranteed Spirit lost the game) it’s hard to find the positives.

These players are being paid more than ever before, and most of them have been full-time pros for five years now, and yet…

Most of them can hit a ball, but their decision-making is shocking. The international superstars have had a long summer, and were almost certainly peaked for the World Cup in terms of their fitness; but that’s a minority – most of these are domestic pros, but they are playing like schoolboys (sic!) with an almost male level of self-delusion about their own (in)abilities to ramp their 7th ball back over the keeper, or clear the ring with a dinky chip. I’m not naming names here, because it is everyone; but if you were watching, you know who I’m talking about.

We can only hope that this is a low point; and that the semifinal and final give us something to celebrate and cheer – a bit of the magic Davina Perrin gave us in that semi at The Oval last summer. Because right now, Spirit might have been Kerr’sed; but this The Hundred… in its “reboot” season… feels cursed.