India might win the next test match . Broad out , Jimmy a doubt , no woakes , archer , stone , stokes all out for varying reasons .
I'm treating any success in this competition as a big bonus considering the players we have missing, we still have a lot to look forward to even if we don't qualify tomorrow.
Super death bowling by Mills and Jordan as per usual. They are the difference between chasing 140-150 and 160-170.
Nice boost to the NRR which could be important. But I really do fancy us against The Oval Invincibles on Monday.
KP properly tearing into Banton. Says he's incapable of hitting the ball along the ground, finding the gaps. TBH he's got a point. It seems to be 6 or nothing with Banton.
Six home games played, six home games won. I get that it was only the Fire. So that should slightly temper our celebrations. But nonetheless, there is so much to be pleased about from that men's match. Briggs put in his best performance so far (it really was like the old days, watching him celebrate with Vince after that first wicket). Stirling again showed he's a better 6th option than CDG. Mills and Jordan continued to do their thing. We took down the PP. Vince and QDK both made substantial scores. And Davies played the calm and efficient innings that you would wish from any finisher - I'd give anything for CDG or Whiteley to play an innings like that. Slightly surreal that I've seen more of KP down here during this competition than I ever did when he played here.
Surprisingly, given how close the table is, that improvement in our NRR is unlikely to matter. Assuming that all remaining games have a winner, we can only finish level on points with Superchargers or Oval. For Superchargers, they would have to win their last two and we would have to lose our last one. If that happens, their NRR will definitely end up better than ours, despite our improvement today. For Oval, they would have to lose to Spirit and then beat us. If that happens, our NRR will almost certainly get worse. And Oval's would almost certainly get better. Hence that would mean them having to lose fairly heavily to Spirit, given that they already have a half decent NRR advantage over us. In any event though, I'm not convinced that nine points will be enough. I'm thinking 10 for 3rd, and 11 or even 12 for 1st.
I was there at my first Hundred game and also my first non-socially distanced sporting event. It was fun, decent enough atmosphere and some good performances by Vince and De Kock. There was a guy a few rows behind us that spent most of the entire much heckling poor Jimmy Neshaam. Though it was kinda amusing when he went to pick up a ball and miss timed it, the reaction was as to be expected. But I think he thought it was just banter as at one stage he did give a bit of a thumbs up to the crowd behind him. I did wonder if he'd relent and eventually give a wave, but he did not. Although a minor issue is at least where I was sat (about 150-ish degrees from the wicket), the sound coming out the speakers wasn't very loud, which most of the time was fine but it made it really hard to hear the half-time act (a woman called Lauran Hibbert), so I couldn't tell if she was good or not. She seemed okay though. Anyhow, let's go Southerners! The south shall rise again!
I think we can say that's Hampshire out of the One Day Cup. Oh well, not exactly a huge disappointment. I'd rather we focus on the T20 and the County Championship anyway.
They could have chased down another 100 if they'd needed to. To have the two highest scorers in the competition is pretty impressive. The defeats to Essex and Gloucs were the costly ones, not today. We got ourselves into positions to win both those matches.
And fair play to Glocs, because that miracle finish from Harmer has sent them through ahead of Lancs. After just losing out to us in the CC and the t20, I'm pleased that this time they've come out the right side of the line.
