Alice Capsey top scored for Oval Invincibles © Getty Images
Oval Invincibles 132 for 7 (Capsey 59) beat London Spirit 117 for 7 (Knight 40, van Niekerk 3-30) by 15 runs
An early feature of the Hundred has been young, uncapped English players making a name for themselves and Alice Capsey continued that trend at Lord’s. Capsey, Oval Invincibles’ 16-year-old opening batter, hit 10 fours in a composed innings of 59 from 41 balls to lead her side to 132, which they defended with ease.
The Invincibles struggled early, slipping to 29 for 3 after 29 balls, but Capsey’s partnership of 80 with captain Dane van Niekerk led their rebuilding job before some lower-order hitting at the death got them up to a score that looked slightly above par.
In the chase, the Spirit never got going, with Heather Knight’s 40 the only innings of note. Shabnim Ismail was the pick of the attack, conceding only 15 runs from her 20 balls – which featured 14 dots – while van Niekerk took three wickets with her slow legbreaks. Dani Gibson’s lusty hitting at the death made the margin of defeat look significantly tighter than it had felt, with the Invincibles cruising to victory in the first London derby of the Lord’s double-header.
Classy Capsey
Capsey hit the first ball she faced on the Hundred’s opening night for four over mid-off, and repeated the trick with a thump over mid-on from a Naomi Dattani full toss. She displayed her confidence when skipping down to loft Knight inside-out over extra cover following the three early wickets, and crashed consecutive fours off Charlie Dean’s offspin with a loft down the ground followed by a reverse-sweep.
She reached fifty with a clip down the ground off Deepti Sharma following consecutive boundaries off her, sweeping and whipping through the leg side, before picking out deep backward square leg looking to accelerate at the death. Her dominant bottom hand gives her remarkable power, and she was comfortable driving the pace of the innings as van Niekerk struggled for rhythm.
Capsey will return to school to finish her A-Levels next year but looks nailed on for a professional contract when she finishes. “I did regional tennis and picked cricket over tennis,” she told Sky Sports. “It’s really good for the women’s game. Younger people can aspire to be out here and I definitely didn’t have that.”
Knight’s lone hand
With the vast majority of England’s home games at smaller county grounds, Knight had not played at Lord’s since the 2017 World Cup final and looked in fine touch during the chase. Her innings of 40 off 29 was the only noteworthy contribution with the bat for the Spirit, attacking against van Niekerk and Dani Gregory’s legspin, but nobody managed to stay with her for long enough for it to get them close.
Ismail had set the tone in her first spell, rushing batters for pace and hitting 77mph/124kph with the fastest ball of the tournament to date, while Tash Farrant and van Niekerk both struck twice in as many balls. The Invincibles were generally impressive in the field despite a couple of mishaps, with Fran Wilson’s direct hit running Deepti Sharma out, Grace Gibbs taking two good catches in the deep and sub fielder Eva Gray taking a steepler to get Dattani.
More to follow
Matt Roller is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. @mroller98
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo