Trent Rockets 134 for 6 (Smith 64, Arlott 3-15) beat Birmingham Phoenix 131 for 4 (A Jones 46*) by three runs
Rockets still need to win their final game at The Oval on Monday afternoon, and hope Welsh Fire lose their final two games, with all three results creating a big enough margin for them to leap ahead on net run-rate.
In a must-win game, the Rockets tried to play more positive cricket in the Powerplay, scoring 44 runs off their first 25 balls and losing just one wicket. Smith, the opener, did most of the scoring, picking up five fours and a six while scoring 34 runs off 16 inside the Powerplay and losing the wicket of Lizelle Lee, chipping to cover off Sophie Devine for 3 off 8 balls.
Nat Sciver-Brunt added further impetus to the innings with 18 runs off 11, but her Rockets side stumbled in the middle phase: Sciver-Brunt was bowled by Emily Arlott, who then extended Harmanpreet Kaur’s poor run of form by trapping her lbw on review.
Smith brought up the fastest half-century for a Rockets Women player off 28 balls and was the backbone of their batting performance, but was stumped off Katie Levick as Phoenix took pace off the ball to good effect. Levick also bowled Fran Wilson on the reverse, while Arlott backed her slower balls at the death to finish with 3 for 15 from her 20 balls and restrict Rockets to 134.
“We were happy with the way we dragged it back after at one point it was looking like they might score 180 or 200,” Arlott said. “We clawed it back after we got Bryony out.
“We took the pace off and that made it much harder for them to get the ball away. They have a strong batting line-up and when you have a top order that are scoring runs so heavily, it helps and that sets a platform for the rest of the team.”
Phoenix fell behind the required rate in the run chase, with Eve Jones (20 off 20) and Sophie Devine (29 off 24) struggling to get the ball away. Alexa Stonehouse was particularly impressive, swinging the new ball and conceding only two runs as she bowled the first 10 balls of the innings.
Rockets were sloppy in the field but their first wicket came thanks to Stonehouse’s direct hit, racing in from short fine leg to find Jones short of her ground at the bowler’s end after she had survived a stumping chance. Devine fell five balls later, edging Kirstie Gordon behind while slog-sweeping.
After Erin Burns hacked a full toss to deep midwicket, Amy Jones kept the game alive, hitting Stonehouse for three fours in a row to take an equation of 24 off 10 balls down to 12 off 7. But she was starved of strike at the death and Sterre Kalis could only manage seven runs off the final set, with 11 required.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo