Nat Sciver-Brunt (again) keeps Trent Rockets in Top 3 hunt
Alexa Stonehouse also starred with the ball to heap more misery on the defending champions
ECB Media
10-Aug-2024
Nat Sciver-Brunt notched her third fifty of the season • Getty Images
Trent Rockets 155 for 7 (Sciver-Brunt 60, Bell 3-36) beat Southern Brave 131 for 6 (Tryon 47*. Stonehouse 2-10)
Another Nat Sciver-Brunt batting masterclass allied a brilliant opening burst by left-arm seamer Alexa Stonehouse to ensure Trent Rockets are alive in this year's Hundred with two huge games to come.
For defending champions Southern Brave, however, with just a single victory all tournament, their difficult run shows no sign of abating.
Skipper Sciver-Brunt's unbeaten 60 from 37 balls - a seventh Hundred fifty for the England star - elevated the Rockets to a commanding 155 for 7 and took her past Danni Wyatt as the tournament's all-time leading female run-scorer. With 933 tournament runs, she's within sight of becoming the first woman to breach the 1000-run mark.
She was given excellent support initially from Grace Scrivens (36 from 24) and then via cameos from Ash Gardner and Heather Graham. Only the death-bowling quality of Lauren Bell, who took three wickets in her final set of five, kept the Rockets in check.
In reply, after Wyatt and Maia Bouchier fell to Stonehouse inside the first five balls, the latter via a beautiful inswinger that arced through the gate, the Brave were always up against it.
Georgie Adams was punchy for her 27 before falling to a superb boundary throw from Katie George, and Smriti Mandhana was all touch and elegance for her 42 (27), but when she miscued a Graham off-break to backward point, the Brave were 82 for 4 after 69 balls and fading.
Some lusty late-order blows by Chloe Tryon briefly threatened an upset - one six was launched 86 metres into the groundstaff's shed - but the Rockets held their nerve to run out comfortable winners by 24 runs.
MeerKat Match Hero Nat Sciver-Brunt acknowledged it was a team effort with contributions all the way through: "Their batters put us under the pump and made us go through a few plans with the ball but we found the right one in the end, and we held our nerve with our skill.
"I had a good partnership with Grace Scrivens, we'd highlighted the need for that after the first few games so we were really pleased with how it went today.
"After the first four games we felt pretty down - three close games and not coming out on the right side of it, so it takes some getting up for the next game, but we've come back really strongly and with two games to go who knows what can happen."