Will Jacks, Sunil Narine get Oval Invincibles' season up and running
Welsh Fire slip to second successive defeat as Jacks comes up trumps on slow Cardiff pitch
ECB Reporters Network
07-Aug-2022
Will Jacks cuts through backward point • Getty Images
Oval Invincibles 158 for 5 (Jacks 81) beat Welsh Fire 119 for 6 (Clarke 37, Narine 3-21) by 39 runs
Will Jacks hit the highest individual score of the Hundred this summer as his 81 steered Oval Invincibles to a 39-run win over Welsh Fire at Sophia Gardens.
Jacks batted from the first to the 99th ball to notch the joint second highest score in the men's Hundred to join Colin Ingram and David Willey just behind Liam Livingstone's current record high of 92.
His late burst of sixes pushed Invincibles to 154 for 5 and enabled them to put their London derby defeat on Thursday behind them as they picked up their first win and condemned Fire to a second successive defeat.
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Having won the toss, Fire sent in Invincibles and quickly added to the pain currently being felt by England star Jason Roy by sending him packing for a mere 10 runs off as many balls.
If that was an improvement on his golden duck in the opening round of the Hundred against London Spirt, he showed his frustration at tickling the ball to short fine leg by tossing his bat in the air as he walked back to the pavilion.
The pace attack of David Payne, Jake Ball and George Scrimshaw bowled tidily enough on a tricky wicket to initially restrict the run rate. Given they only took one wicket in their heavy defeat against the reigning champions, Southern Brave, in their opening game it didn't take them long to improve on that.
Scrimshaw returned the favour to Payne, who caught Roy, by catching the dangerous Rilee Rossouw at short third and all of a sudden it was 22 for 2 with two key batters back in the hutch.
Sam Billings steadied the ship alongside Jacks until he left two balls after being struck in the box and taking a very necessary injury break. His departure, lbw to Ryan Higgins, made it 51 for 3 from 41 balls and put even more responsibility on the shoulders of Jacks.
The opener, Surrey's top scorer in the Blast, steered the side to 57 for 3 at the halfway mark, reached his half-century with a cracking four through extra cover off Payne and then went on the rampage with a series of boundaries.
His 50 came up in 36 balls and he added a further 31 off his next nine deliveries before holing out on the boundary off the penultimate ball of the innings. A four off the last ball by Tom Curran meant the Invincibles had set a reasonable target of 154.
Joe Clarke gave the home side a good start, punishing spinner Danny Briggs with successive sixes in his opening over. He would go onto top score with 37 as he enjoyed stands of 46 with Tom Banton and then 26 with Ben Duckett.
But once he was caught in the deep aiming for another boundary off Tom Curran the writing was on the wall for Fire. They had only made 107 off 100 balls against the Brave and were eventually held to 119 for 6 as Sam and Tom Curran put on the squeeze, both conceding only 24 runs from their 20 balls each.
Sunil Narine chipped in with three wickets as he conceded 21 runs off 20 balls.