Northern Superchargers thrash London Spirit to keep knockout hopes alive

Northern Superchargers 64 for 1 beat London Spirit 111 for 8 (Bopara 31, Jennings 30, Rashid 3-16) by 21 runs via DLS method

Northern Superchargers kept their season alive with a rain-affected victory over London Spirit in the Hundred at Headingley.

They sit second in the table with 11 points, and now face an anxious wait to see if that is enough to secure a place in the knockout stages. They are relying on either Welsh Fire or Manchester Originals doing them a favour in the next two nights, but will be eliminated if those two teams are beaten by Southern Brave and Birmingham Phoenix respectivley. Either way, it is clear progress after they finished bottom last year.

Adil Rashid was the stand-out performer for Harry Brook and Andrew Flintoff’s side, taking 3 for 16 as part of a bowling performance that restricted Spirit to just 111 from their 100 balls.

The England legspinner has troubled batters throughout the competition, and on Tuesday night he removed Matt Critchley, Shimron Hetmyer and Andre Russell across 15 balls in the middle of the innings to knock the stuffing out of a Spirit batting effort that was already flattering to deceive.

Michael Pepper had already headed back to the pavilion, caught terrifically by Mitchell Santner, as had Keaton Jennings, who burned brightly for his 12-ball 30 and was on the receiving end of a send-off from Reece Topley, who had him caught at deep point.

Liam Dawson has been Spirit’s leading wicket-taker and top run-scorer and once again he shouldered the burden of trying to keep Spirit in the game, his 27 from 19 alongside the veteran Ravi Bopara’s 31 took the visitors into triple figures.But at the interval, the smart money was on the Superchargers.

As it was, their chase was to be limited by the rain, but their openers Graham Clark and Matt Short had done enough to ensure they were miles ahead of Duckworth-Lewis Stern when the game was called off. For Spirit, it was a seventh loss from eight games in a campaign which they will be glad is over.

“I think we’ve got a very good squad, good batters and match-winners all the way through,” Rashid said. “We’ve got a bit of a waiting game tomorrow and Thursday, but hopefully one of those two teams do lose and we’re good.”