The Ovals won in the end but they should be punished for their ridiculously slow play after the cutoff.
Quite ironic that Edgbaston seems to have the flattest track in the Hundred given the filth they've prepared for T20 Finals Day in the past.
The drop of Livingstone and the failure to run out Smeed cost them 25 to 30 runs. Fire's only hope here is surely a Banton special? He hasn't fired in the 100 yet (excuse the pun), but he's more than capable.
I see that Dawson has said four to six weeks out. So that's him done for the 100, the t20s, and a decent chunk of the CC.
If everyone beats Fire and Spirit from now on, the table will look as follows when excluding all other matches: Oval 9 (from 7) Brave 9 (from 7) Birmingham 8 (from 6) Rockets 8 (from 6) Manchester 8 (from 6) Superchargers 5 (from 6) That would mean Brave v Oval is a straight shoot-out for one place. The loser will realistically be out. Rockets v Birmingham, and Rockets v Manchester would both go a very long way in deciding the other two places. The other two matches are Superchargers v Manchester, and Superchargers v Birmingham. Because of the above head-to-heads, those matches would likely be no use to the Superchargers (to get through on 9 points realistically requires Spirit or Fire to take points off others). But they're of huge use to their opponents.
NRR shoots up from 0.123 to 0.920. Through the roof. Assuming no more rained off matches (or ties), that puts extra pressure on Trent and Manchester.
