There are cricketers you definitely do not want to face on one of their best days and Marizanne Kapp is one of those as she finished with figures of three for eight to help Oval Invincibles secure a top-two finish.
Kapp has won games with both bat and ball and at Trent Bridge, the Trent Rockets had no answer as she obliterated the top order in a must-win game for both sides, the Invicibles securing their place in Saturday’s eliminator at The Oval with a win by five wickets.
Kapp was not in the mood to take prisoners as she subdued a strong Rockets top order and made the crucial breakthroughs. She bowled Grave Scrivens for a five-ball duck and then a magnificent catch from Mady Villiers saw a premature end to Bryony Smith. Villiers, who has found herself down the England pecking order, is no stranger to taking spectacular catches. Smith’s dismissal was no exception; the ball looked to loop over Villiers’ head only for her to stick a hand out more in hope than expectation and it stuck.
The Trent Bridge crowd was further subdued when Nat Scvier-Brunt, the leading scorer in this year’s competition, was bowled by Rachel Slater, the Scottish international. Sciver-Brunt, trusting the bounce, was let down as she tried to force a shot through mid-wicket, swung at thin air and was bowled for a four-ball duck.
The Rockets hoped to find a partnership to get the score rolling as they finished the powerplay on 15 for three; much would depend on Nat Wraith and Ash Gardner. Gardner was the only Rockets player with the measure of the bowlers and the surface, finishing with a 26 ball 43 that gave her side a glimmer of hope of staying in the game. The Australian international deposited Amanda-Jade Wellington’s first delivery straight for six, one of two sixes in her innings. With Wraith falling to Kapp’s penultimate delivery for 14, the Rockets were in danger of being skittled out in front of their home crowd for a score that would be difficult to defend.
Gardner was the critical wicket that the Invincibles needed, and with Kapp bowled out, it would be Villiers’s turn with the ball. Most of the Rockets’ runs had come from the middle of Gardner’s bat, but the first time she miscued, Villiers was there to take the catch off her own bowling.
The Rockets limped to 91 for eight from their hundred balls, and it would take something special for them to defend such a miserly total. They chipped away, as Gardner had Chamari Athapaththu caught in the deep by Heather Graham for a 16 and at the end of the powerplay, the Invincibles were 25 for one.
Confusion briefly reined when Alice Capsey was given out lbw for nine. Capsey had bottom-edged a Kirstie Gordon delivery and when the call was reviewed, the DRS review skipped the Ultra Edge and went to the ball tracking, much to the protestation of the batter and her captain Lauren Winfield-Hill, who was at the non-striker’s end before the correct decision was made.
Two wickets fell, with the score on 33, as Winfield-Hill was plumb lbw to Graham to end a ten-ball stay in the middle with five runs. Capsey was bowled by Alana King for ten to a ball that turned sharply, and the batter could only look at the wreckage of her stumps. It gave the Rockets a slight chance of working their way back into the game.
With bat in hand now, Kapp, with26 runs from 24 balls, was intent on ensuring her side would be at The Oval on Saturday as she batted smartly with Paige Scholfield, who top-scored for the chasing team with 26 before skying Gordon Alexa Stonehouse.
The fact that it took 94 balls for the Invincibles made the game feel closer than ever, and the Rockets will go away and think about what could have been. The Invincibles will have to play in front of a home crowd in a London Derby against London Spirit on Saturday to decide who will face Welsh Fire in the final at Lord’s on Sunday.
