Davies, bowlers keep Brave hopes alive

THE HUNDRED 2022

Alex Davies’s unbeaten 51 backed up by a disciplined bowling performance helped Southern Brave keep their tournament hopes alive with their third win of the season, beating Trent Rockets by six wickets, at the Rose Bowl on Thursday. Put in to bat, Rockets lost Alex Hales early, becoming Paul Stirling’s maiden wicket in the Hundred. Stirling, who had an impressive outing with the ball, returning 1 for 10 in 15 balls, had the Rockets opener cut to the cover fielder.

Dawid Malan, on the other hand, kept Rockets’ attack going from one end. After slamming Sonny Baker for boundaries off successive balls, he swept Jake Lintott for a six followed by reverse sweeping Rehan Ahmed for a boundary.

Lintott bore the primary assault of Rockets’ attack. After a slow start by the batters in the first 50 balls, Samit Patel hammered the spinner for consecutive sixes – one drilled down the ground, the other swiped through the deep mid wicket region. Lintott ended up conceding 48 runs from his spell.

However, barring Malan’s 41-ball 59, there wasn’t much fluency from Rockets as they were eventually restricted to 138 for 6, with Michael Hogan and James Fuller bagging a brace each, and combining to concede only 38 runs in 35 balls.

Brave’s start to the chase wasn’t any more enterprising, after Sam Cook and Luke Wood struck early – Stirling getting undone by Cook’s slower ball and James Vince playing Wood’s full delivery back on to the stumps to reduce the side to 9 for 2 in 14 balls.

Quinton de Kock and Alex Davies, who revived the chase, struggled to pick up the scoring rate though. Barring a six and a couple of boundaries, the duo couldn’t score a boundary before the former eventually fell on a scratchy 23-ball 24. Davies had it even tougher to find boundaries, having to wait till the 30th ball of his innings.

Nonetheless, in the company of Ross Whiteley, he expertly helped the side take the innings forward. The duo managed to add 71 runs in 38 balls to help close down on the target before Whiteley fell holed out at deep mid wicket on 30.

With 16 needed off the last 11 balls, in an innings where only 8 boundaries were scored in the previous 90 balls, it was still a tricky position. However, Tim David didn’t take too long to bring an end to the contest, slamming Wood for two sixes and then following up with a whack through the backward square leg region for a boundary to end the run chase and hand Rockets only their second loss of the season.

Brief Scores:

Trent Rockets 138/6 in 100 balls (Dawid Malan 59, Samit Patel 21; James Fuller 2-18, Michael Hogan 2-20) lost to Southern Brave 142/4 in 95 balls (Alex Davies 51*, Ross Whiteley 30; Sam Cook 2-25) by 6 wickets (Cricbuzz)