Dan Lawrence's 43, four-for pushes London Spirit into top spot

Dan Lawrence starred with bat and ball as London Spirit recorded their fifth victory out of six in their Hundred campaign, beating winless Welsh Fire by 18 runs.

The England international top-scored for his side with an impressive 43 off 26 and with Adam Rossington and Ben McDermott weighing in with 32 apiece, Spirit set a challenging target of 157 despite Ish Sodhi's tight spell on debut.

Lawrence made sure that total was never seriously challenged as he decimated Fire's top order with 4 for 20, and despite some explosive hitting from the middle order, Fire came up short.

After Fire won the toss and chose to field, Spirit opener Rossington produced the early pyrotechnics with a flurry of boundaries off Dwaine Pretorius and David Payne. His partner Daniel Bell-Drummond was undone by a beauty from Jake Ball, but Rossington's brutal striking brought the hosts to 41 for one at the end of the powerplay.

Sodhi, Fire's replacement for Adam Zampa, applied the brakes, only giving away two runs in his first five and pressure told when Rossington slog-swept the New Zealand legspinner straight down Ben Duckett's throat in the deep. Eoin Morgan went without scoring but McDermott picked up where Rossington had left off, smashing his second six over long-on.

McDermott too though fell to Sodhi's wizardry at which point he had 2 for 6 in 14 deliveries. But Lawrence caused a dent in his bowling figures, twice planting him into the Grandstand.

A third six to the long side followed as he endangered the cameras beyond the longer square boundary and with Kieron Pollard also clearing the ropes in his last appearance before making his way back to the Caribbean Premier League, Spirit posted a competitive 156.

Fire struggled for momentum from the off, taking 17 balls to find the boundary and the out-of-form Joe Clarke holed out soon afterwards off the bowling of Thompson trying to go the aerial route.

Thereafter Lawrence returned to centre stage - his delivery to captain Josh Cobb caused him to skew his effort and he was comfortably caught by Bell-Drummond; two balls later, he yorked Bethell with a beauty and David Miller's effort was seized by Pollard on the boundary edge.

Pretorius and Duckett briefly raised Fire's hopes with a partnership of 52 off 28, the latter striking two big sixes, but Lawrence returned to castle Duckett with the last ball of his spell.

Leus du Plooy took up the challenge clubbing consecutive sixes and Matt Critchley blazed 21 from six balls, but Chris Wood dismissed both in the final set of five to finish with 4 for 28 as Spirit clinched victory.