Invincibles bowl Spirit out for 80 in dominant win

Lord’s and Hundred Men’s competition

London Spirit 80 all out (94 balls): Rashid Khan 3-11, S Curran 3-18

Oval Invincibles 81-4 (69 balls): Jacks 24 (24), Dawson 2-9

Six wickets separated Invincibles.

As Oval Invincibles clinched a thumping six-wicket victory at Lord’s, London Spirit were penalized for the second-lowest score by a men’s team in The Hundred.

After choosing to bat first, Spirit quickly found themselves in trouble and duly lost the game after 94 balls to reach 80 all out.

Rashid Khan, the Invincibles debutant, took 3-11, while Sam Curran, the all-around England player, took 3-18, the slowest wicket-taking ball by a seamer in the men’s history of the game.

With a mediocre 10-ball opening set, Jason Behrendorff set the tone for an impressive Oval Invincibles bowling and fielding performance.

In his next five starts, Keaton Jennings had already left before the Australian left-arm seamer made a second comeback to dismiss Spirit skipper Kane Williamson.

In his Hundred debut, David Warner struggled to make up for Jordan Clark’s nine-minute lack of powerplay and his own time was wasted trying to make up for it.

Spirit 26-3 was in trouble, but the damage was not all that bad. Rashid Khan enter.

In a 10-ball set that went for 10 runs, the Afghan leg-spinner, who also had three catches in the deep, used his third ball to show off his full arsenal of deliveries, varying his delivery speed to great effect, before striking again with his third ball to remove Wayne Madsen.

In his next ten balls, he only allowed one more run. As Spirit’s batters attempted and failed to grasp the best T20 wicket-taker of all time, Liam Dawson was stranded in front and Ryan Higgins dolled a catch backward.

Rashid’s deliveries were significantly quicker than Curran’s ultra-slow balls when they were being used.

With a 47.7mph ball before going even slower to bowl Richard Gleeson, the Spirit batters appeared to be completely out of the bag. The left-armer removed Ashton Turner, who had already top-scored for Spirit with 21 and struck out 47.

With only a small amount of time to go, Invincibles were able to take their time on a challenging pitch, and it was only a matter of when, not whether the winners would win.

On Wednesday, Manchester Originals take on Southern Brave in a second double-header at Old Trafford.