This season’s iteration of the women’s Hundred has been one of the closest yet. Matches have gone down to the wire, with all three results possible going into the last ten deliveries. Trent Bridge today was no exception. It felt a must-win game for the hosts Trent Rockets, who went into the proceedings second bottom, against a Welsh Fire side in second.
Eventually, Welsh Fire would take the victory by six wickets with two balls remaining, and the Rockets would rue a series of fielding mistakes. With an unbeaten fifty, Sarah Bryce saw Fire home to continue her excellent run of form.
It started badly for the home side, whose skipper Nat Sciver-Brunt had won the toss and chosen to bat first only to see both openers back in the pod having chopped deliveries onto their stumps for golden ducks. Freya Davies made the initial breakthrough with the first ball of the game as she dismissed the dangerous Bryony Smith and then Beth Langston, with her second ball was able to tempt Grace Scrivens to flash at a wide delivery, only for the young batter to survey the wreckage of her stumps.
Where the Rockets have excelled this season is in their middle order. Nat Wraith, their wicketkeeper, has stepped into the role at three and has given the batting not just depth but a player in good form. This allows Nat Sciver-Brunt to play herself in and take her innings deep. This worked again as the two Nats added 52 from 37 balls for the third wicket and rebuilt an innings that looked like it would fail to launch.
Wraith was dislodged for a 24-ball 28 by a fantastic piece of fielding from Phoebe Graham, who hurtled in from deep mid-wicket and held onto the ball while still travelling. When Sciver-Brunt was dismissed for a well-judged 37 from 26 balls, that contained only three fours, to a wonderful stumping from Bryce, the Rockets could have imploded.
Ashleigh Gardner 31, and Heather Graham 27 not out, chipped in with a partnership of 49 to get Trent Rockets to 130 for five, but it felt at least 15 runs light and so it proved.
Rockets could not afford any slipups with the ball and needed to make early inroads to a formidable Welsh Fire batting line-up. They managed to get the dangerous pair of Sophia Dunkley and Tammy Beaumont in the first 14 balls. Dunkley, on four, hit it straight at Kirsty Gordon, who took more than one grab to hold on. Beaumont was then lbw without scoring to her international and regional teammate Sciver-Brunt.
Bryce, who has called Trent Bridge home for the last couple of seasons, continued the form that saw her have an excellent Charlotte Edwards Cup campaign and she batted with maturity, batting alongside genuine world-class players. An unbeaten partnership of 44 with Georgia Elwiss for the fifth wicket made the difference. As the pressure started to mount, the fielding side began to make little mistakes that allowed the batters to grab the extra runs as the game fell away from the team in yellow, in front of a partisan Trent Bridge crowd.
With the inconsistent form of other teams, the season isn’t over for Trent Rockets, but they will need to start putting in some big performances to get out of the group stages.
As for Welsh Fire, they are getting the results that made them a force last year, and they look like they want to go at least one step better this time.
