This week:

• Spirit beat Fire in a thrilling Hundred final at Lord’s
• Where will the World Cup be moved to & what does that mean for England’s plans?
• Scotland due to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games, but will it involve women’s cricket?
• Our thoughts on Yorkshire’s new coach

As with Invincibles in the Eliminator yesterday, so with Fire today – failure to put quite enough runs on the board in the 1st innings, and in particular a post-powerplay lull in the Early Middle phase, made it too easy for a London Spirit side that have looked workmanlike at best, but nonetheless claimed the prize because that’s all they needed to be.

Georgia Redmayne won player of the match; Deepti Sharma struck the winning six; but it was Dani Gibson that was perhaps the key player for Spirit. We gave her both barrels for her bowling yesterday, as she conceded 38 runs (one of the worst bowling returns in the history of the competition) and she didn’t have the best outing with the ball today either (0-16 from 10 balls) but she made up for it with the bat.

With the Heather Knight / Georgia Redmayne partnership having gone undefeated on the way to victory yesterday yesterday, it looked for all the world like we were heading the same way again, with Spirit on 50-2 at the half-way point in the chase.

Intriguingly though, WinHer had the Fire edging it 56%-44%, and if Fire could break the Knight/ Redmayne partnership, you felt they had a real chance to win the game; so when Shabnim Ismail returned to castle Heather Knight, that meant Gibson walking out to the middle with the match on a knife-edge. But the only edge was a slightly streaky single for Gibson’s first run.

Gibson then timed her next delivery from Ismail perfectly through backward point for 4, using the South African’s pace against her, before hitting the next for another boundary to midwicket. The change of ends meant Redmayne held the strike until the final two deliveries of the following set, which Gibson again struck for a brace of fours off Hayley Matthews. The first ball of the next set, bowled by Freya Davies? Another 4 – 5 consecutive boundaries in all.

Gibson became Ismail’s 3rd and final victim shortly after, but the 22 off 9 balls she’d added had turned a tricky chase into a canter for the batters who came in after her, with Deepti playing exactly the same smart cricket that Redmayne and Knight had in the Eliminator, knowing exactly what she needed to do, and waiting for the right time to strike the big shot which carried Spirit over the finish line. And who else would it be out there with Deepti when she hit the winning runs at Lord’s but Charlie Dean?

Like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, where (spoiler alert!) the villain from the first film returns as the hero for the second, Deepti turned her story around, winning over a Lord’s crowd of over 22,000 with the biggest cheer of the afternoon as she hoisted the trophy high on the podium after the match.

It has been a fascinating Hundred in the Women’s Competition, with the feeling that any one of 5 sides could have won it. London Spirit lost 3 games and scraped through to the Eliminator in 3rd place; but both Oval Invincibles and Welsh Fire lost 2 games apiece, so neither had dominated the way Brave did last season. In the end, it became a test of nerve and a test of smarts, and that’s where Spirit had the edge – beating teams that they had lost to in the group stages because they held their nerve and remembered their smarts when it really mattered.

A second unbeaten half-century of this 2024 Women’s Hundred from Georgia Redmayne took London Spirit to victory with 9 balls to spare – a pretty comfortable margin in this shortest of all short forms of the game – in The Annihilator Terminator Eliminator at The Oval.

Redmayne wasn’t supposed to be the “Big Name” in the London Spirit XI – that was Meg Lanning, with over 200 caps and more than 8,000 international runs. In contrast, Redmayne has zero caps, and zero international runs, having spent her 20s combining cricket with completing her medical training to qualify as a doctor. But for once, the Megastar has been eclipsed, with Redmayne outscoring her by 195 runs to 166 in the tournament so far.

The Doc played a patient innings (yes… I went there… for more puns of this quality follow my TikTok*!) and had to wait until the final moment to secure her half-century after Heather Knight almost snatched the opportunity from her, hitting out at the death. With 2 needed off 10 balls for the win, and 1 short of the fifty, Redmayne finally got the strike back from Knight, who had faced most of the previous couple of sets, and drove Alice Capsey through the covers for the runs she and Spirit needed. 53 off 47 balls isn’t a huge Strike Rate, but it didn’t matter – it was enough to win the game, and that’s all that counts – Spirit are heading back north of the river for tomorrow’s final with a spring in their step.

Oval Invincibles ultimately paid the price for a sluglish Early Middle phase, scoring just 19 runs between balls 25 and 50. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Dani Gibson giving them 3 gifts it would have been far worse.

The gift of gold came in the 2nd set, bowled by Gibson, which went for 16 runs – the most expensive set of the match; but it was followed by frankincense (9 off balls 70-75) and myrrh (13 off 85-90) as Heather Knight inexplicably persisted with Gibson, even though Tara Norris had bowled only 5 balls (conceding 5) leaving her with 15 still unused at the end. Heather Knight backing “her” players can be admirable; but sometimes it veers into obstinacy, and that’s how it looked today – Gibson was almost twice as expensive as Spirit’s next bowler, Charlie Dean – conceding 2.53 runs per ball, to Dean’s 1.2.

With precious few runs to play with, Invincibles played their trump card – Marizanne Kapp – early and often, hoping for the wickets they needed to get back into the match. Kapp was bowled out with half the match remaining, and I think Rosa hits the nail on the head identifying the problem with this:

Once Kapp was through, Heather Knight and Georgia Redmayne knew that all they needed to do was keep rotating the strike, hitting the odd bad ball to the boundary, and the win would come without them having to take too many risks.

Sure, there were some dropped catches as they made their way towards their target – Invincibles made it easier for them than it might have been – but basically the game was won by the halfway point in the Spirit innings, as long as they played it smart, and there are few people smarter in cricket than Heather Knight and Dr Georgia Redmayne.

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* I don’t have a TikTok – sorry.

Lauren Winfield-Hill reverse-swept away the doubts, after a poor Hundred by her own high standards, to put Oval Invincibles in pole position for a top 3 finish with a good win over London Spirit at The Oval – a win at Rockets in their final group stage match will guarantee qualification for the knockouts.

Speaking after the game, Winfield-Hill admitted that she was “probably starting to lose a bit of faith” after a run of low and lowish scores (her highest in The Hundred 2024 before today was 20 versus Originals). She credited the coaching staff at Invincibles, particularly Johann Myburgh and Jonathan Batty, for giving her the belief she needed to come back at a crucial stage in the tournament with a match-winning 61 off 40 balls.

It wasn’t quite as straightforward a win as it might have been. Spirit had a nightmare powerplay, scoring just 13 runs off the first 25 balls. Marizanne Kapp was at her parsimonious best, opening the bowling with two sets on the trot taking 1-4; and Scotland’s Rachel Slater then matched her, also taking 1-4 off consecutive sets; before Ryana MacDonald-Gay stepped up to concede just 3 more runs to leave Spirit 13-2.

Cordelia Griffith had a very Cordelia Griffith stay at the crease, taking some time to settle in before hitting a cracking six over backward square which looked the business; then running herself out 3 balls later after failing to spot that Heather Knight had decided against a tight second run.

Spirit had slumped to 41-6 by the half-way point, and we were checking the record books for the lowest total in the history of the competition – Birmingham Phoenix’s 54 v the Superchargers a couple of weeks ago, since you ask! But a typically stoic rearguard action led by Deepti Sharma brought them back from the brink to post a pretty decent 120. As a youngster playing for Surrey, Eva Gray was considered allrounder material, but she has focused almost exclusively on her bowling in recent years, and is playing here very much as a pure bowler. However, her 28 off 22 balls on Saturday belied her tailender status, as her and Deepti put on a crucial partnership of 56.

There were a few questions asked as to why Marizanne Kapp was left with 5 balls in the bag, given that Invincibles were leaking runs like a fishing net towards the end, conceding a whopping 48 in the death phase. Lauren Winfield-Hill admitted post-match that this was partly about protecting her key asset – saying she was reluctant to bring Kapp back cold, given that she was also carded to bat at 4.

Invincibles came out to bat knowing that failing to chase 120 would make it very difficult to qualify, so the pressure was on both openers, with Chamari having had a similar run of form to Winfield-Hill prior to today – one knock of 30 and not a lot else. You can’t fault Chamari’s commitment – she was diving about in the field, giving it everything she had – and she played a couple of the most gorgeous strokes today; but unfortunately two strokes doesn’t make a summer. She chewed up 12 dots in 19 balls today – almost 20% of the innings, it is easy to forget – which left the rest with a lot of work to do.

Fortunately, Winfield-Hill was up to it, pulling out some beautifully timed reverse sweeps, unusually for her – she joked afterwards that she had only played the shot twice in her life before this innings! Alice Capsey was a little subdued, running singles to keep her strike rate ticking over, before inexplicably trying to ramp Dani Gibson, who she must know is the kind of bowler who will hit if you miss. Personally, if I was in charge, I’d have the next England batter to attempt a ramp shot summarily executed pour encourager les autres, so… it is probably just as well for everyone’s sake that I’m not, especially Alice Capsey.

Marizanne Kapp, though, came out the consummate professional, knowing what needed to be done, and the Matterhorn chart shows a perfectly timed chase, with just enough impetus to ensure that things were wrapped up before it got squeaky.

The Invincibles certainly haven’t been invincible this season, but it looks like they’ve done just enough to get through to the knockouts, where anything can happen. That’s when the value of having someone like Kapp really hits home, as it did in the 2021 final when she destroyed Southern Brave at Lord’s. With the likes of Kapp and Capsey, Invincibles have the players to beat anyone on the day, and if Winfield-Hill can make her knock today the start of a perfectly timed run of form, we could yet see the Invincibles name on the trophy for a 3rd time next weekend.

This week, on the Official Vodcast of the Powerful Women’s Cricket Lobby™:

• Will women’s cricket actually see ANY of the money from the sale of The Hundred?
• What’s gone wrong for Manchester Originals?
• Has Grace Scrivens silenced her critics?
• Our predictions for the finalists and the winner of The Hundred 2024!

This week:

• Hampshire sell off the family silver (and £60m debt) to Delhi Capitals
• ⁠The Hundred: What’s gone wrong for Southern Brave?
• ⁠Welsh Fire top the table: the queens of pressure run chases
• ⁠Could Sri Lanka win the World Cup in Bangladesh?

When I walked into the press box before today’s match, the Oval Invincibles media manager mistook me for someone else. I was embarrassed; but perhaps I shouldn’t have been – their socials today suggest he also mistook Oval Invincibles for a cricket team. Now that’s awkward!

Having been put into bat, the Superchargers didn’t get off to the kind of start which suggested they were heading for a huge win. At the halfway point in their innings, they were 62-2, with Phoebe Litchfield and Annabel Sutherland both set, but not exactly motoring. Litchfield remains a little bit of an enigma in short-form cricket – despite the dinks and the sweeps and the ramps, she is far more comfortable playing the kind of booming cover drive with which she opened her account today. She can do the T20 shots all around the ground, but they feel plastic somehow – manufactured rather than her natural game. But having said all that, her natural game is nonetheless so good, that she is able to make T20 work for her regardless, and she was obviously vital today in terms of steadying things after those two early wickets.

Having reached 50 balls with just those two wickets down, Litchfield and Sutherland clearly decided to turn it up a notch, and the acceleration began into a big late middle phase which produced 48 runs at a Strike Rate of 192.

This was probably the key phase of the match, because it turned a middling score into a big one, so although Superchargers slowed down significantly at the death they still ended up on 146, which is right at the top end of a typical total in this competition.

Sutherland finished 63 not out, looking pretty-much as comfortable as it is possible to look in a format that is so relentless; and once again I find myself thinking that what stands Sutherland apart is an incredible work ethic that sees her return to England a better player every summer she comes… and that was even before she got her hands on the ball 45 minutes later!

A very decent total put the pressure on Invincibles batting from the off, and… they cracked big-time, losing a wicket in each of the first 5 sets, to finish the powerplay on 24-5. Lauren Winfield-Hill got a decent ball from Kate Cross; and Kapp was done by an over-optimistic call from Chamari, but everyone else will be wincing when they review the analysis footage, and rightly so.

By the time Amanda-Jade Wellington and Paige Scholfield got together, it was just a question of trying to save some face, and they did what they could, but they obviously weren’t going to go on and win the game from 24-5. And then Sutherland happened for the second time today, taking 4 wickets in 6 balls, with the dastardly tactic of bowling at the stumps – it’ll never catch on!!

The result really opens up the table, with 4 teams on 4 points and one (Superchargers) on 3. It also leaves Southern Brave bottom, which is a new experience for a Charlotte Edwards team; but with there being so little in it, there is still plenty of scope for them to turn things around. The bigger challenge than Edwards’ is on Invincibles coach Jonathan Batty – they were swaggering; now they are staggering. Which way will they go from here?