Dottin stars as Originals clinch thriller

An inspired performance in the field from Manchester Originals held off the Superchargers in one of the games of the tournament.

In front of a bumper crowd of 11,952 - a record for the women's competition at Emirates Old Trafford - the home side held their nerve and took their catches to clinch a potentially season-defining victory.

Defeat here to the high-flying Superchargers would have put the Originals' campaign in jeopardy; yet they finished the day on level points with their opponents, in joint second, and with the table wide open.

The catching was spectacular. The hinge point of the run-chase came from the 61st ball of the innings, when the in-form Australian southpaw Phoebe Litchfield, having just unfurled a stunning switch-hit for six, climbed into a conventional sweep against Kathryn Bryce. She got a lot of it, but Fi Morris, running full tilt not far from the boundary rope, leapt to pluck it out of the skies.

Morris then took another good tumbling catch to remove Annabel Sutherland, before Deandra Dottin flung herself full stretch at cover to grab a fingertip-catch and remove Bess Heath with just seven balls remaining. That gave Sophie Ecclestone her second wicket.

Left-arm spinner Ecclestone - working in tandem with the brilliant wrist-spinner Amelia Kerr, who also claimed two wickets - applied a further clamp to the Superchargers' momentum which had began with an excellent new-ball spell from Mahika Gaur, who conceded just 10 runs from her 15 deliveries.

After Ecclestone, the final set of five was coolly delivered by Lauren Filer to spark huge celebrations.

Beth Mooney, Originals captain, later acknowledged that her team's depth of bowling was crucial to the outcome.

"It's a huge result," she said. "We've got to win these scrappy games and sometimes it looks a little bit ugly, as it did at times today for us, but it puts you in good stead at the back end of tournaments like this. I've got six international bowlers that I'm working with and they're great at executing their skills. To have Sophie Ecclestone and Amelia Kerr, two of the best spinners in the world, in our team, certainly makes my life easy."

The Meerkat Match Hero award went to Dottin, who registered just the second fifty of the Originals' tournament. It was her intervention, coming to the crease with just 42 balls left in the innings after the openers Mooney and Bryce had both fallen for single-figure scores, that changed the course of the match and perhaps the Originals' season.

Her unbeaten 51 was vintage Dottin, especially lethal on the pull to anything short, and clumping three sixes in her 26-ball stay. The momentum generated from Dottin's knock carried over to the second innings, keeping the Originals very much alive in the tournament.

"It was a really good game," said Dottin. "So exciting and we're just so pleased to get over the line. After the feedback and the info from the players who'd already been in the middle, the main thing for me was to see what it was actually doing and then taking it as deep as possible. It's a big win but we're not too overconfident."