Deepti Sharma’s heroic last-ball 6 powers London Spirit to 1st Hundred Women title

Deepti Sharma held her nerves as London Spirit won their maiden title in the Hundred Women competition. On Sunday (August 18)

The team, led by Heather Knight, beat Welsh Fire by four wickets in a thrilling final at the iconic Lord’s Cricket Ground. With the Spirit needing four runs off the last three balls, a Super Five was also on the cards, but Deepti settled the nerves in the Spirit camp.

The left-handed Deepti smashed Hayley Matthews down the ground for a six, taking her team past the finish line. The left-handed batter struggled to get going in the first half of her knock, but did the job for her team with an unbeaten 16-run innings.

Chasing 116, the Spirit found themselves under pressure after Shabnim Ismail put pressure on them with a fiery spell of 20-9-24-3. She prized out the wickets of Meg Lanning, Heather Knight and Danielle Gibson to keep the Fire in hunt. Gibson was looking dangerous, having scored 22 off nine before she became Ismail’s third victim.

Georgia Redmayne and Knight also chipped in with useful knocks of 34 and 24 respectively. Barring Ismail, none of the Fire bowlers could make inroads into the opposition batting, although they were economical.

Jess Jonassen’s efforts in vain for Fire

Earlier, after being asked to bat first, the Fire huffed and puffed their way to scoring 115 for the loss of eight wickets at the Home of Cricket. Tammy Beamount and Matthews made 21 and 22 respectively, but got out after getting their eyes in.

From there on, Jonassen took charge and guided her team to some sort of respectability. She went on to score 54 runs off 41 balls, laced with eight fours. Sarah Glenn and Eva Gray accounted for two scalps apiece. Jonassen also had decent figures of 20-8-16-0, but her efforts were not enough for the Fire to win.