Crawley smashes Superchargers to win over Fire

The Hundred men’s competition, Headingley

Welsh Fire 143-9 (100 balls): Bairstow 42 (23); Rashid 2-25

Northern Superchargers 147-2 (89 balls): Crawley 67* (38); Meredith 2-33

Superchargers won by eight wickets

Zak Crawley hit a superb unbeaten 67 from 38 balls as Northern Superchargers raced to an eight-wicket win over Welsh Fire in The Hundred.

Having restricted Fire to 143-9, Superchargers got off to a blistering start as the England opener put on 91 with Dawid Malan, who hit 41 from 29, for the first wicket.

Crawley was given a life on 45 – one of three costly drops from the Fire in the innings – and made the most of his good fortune to reach his highest Hundred score, on his Superchargers debut, to get them over the line with 11 balls to spare.

The Superchargers might have expected to be chasing more on a good surface at Headingley, especially when Jonny Bairstow and Steve Smith got the Fire off to a rapid start with a 62-run stand.

The evening started with a Leeds crowd conflicted as they ‘welcomed’ the Fire opening pair to the crease – cheering Yorkshireman Bairstow before booing former Australia skipper Smith.

But with Bairstow playing for the visitors, there was rather less enthusiasm when he began flaying the ball to all parts of a ground he knows so well.

Smith was going well, too, on his Hundred debut and the two former Ashes foes looked to have Fire well on their way to a big total.

However, when Smith was bowled for 29 trying to reverse scoop Potts, who had Wells caught behind the next ball, momentum began to shift.

Bairstow kept going briefly before he was caught at long-on and the innings fell away.

Superchargers made no such mistake. Crawley and Malan combined for four sixes to take the home side to 52-0 after the powerplay.

Malan, dropped on 28, eventually fell to a Riley Meredith slower ball just past the halfway point of the chase and Michael Pepper was dismissed soon after.

But Andrew Flintoff’s Superchargers remained in control – as emphasised by captain Harry Brook, who came in and clobbered his first ball high over extra cover for six.

Fire could not fight back. Paul Walter put down Crawley shortly before he brought up his half-century from 29 balls and Saif Zaib grassed a skier off Brook when he was on 10.

It’s a midlands derby on Friday as Birmingham Phoenix and Trent Rockets get up and running for the year in another double-header at Edgbaston.

The women’s game starts at 15:00 BST with the men’s match following at 18:30 BST.