Hat-trick hero Curran stars as Invincibles beat Spirit

2 months ago 12

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Mike Peter

BBC Sport Journalist

The Hundred men's competition, Lord's

Oval Invincibles 147-5 (100 balls): S Curran 51 (22); Critchley 1-14

London Spirit 117 all out (95 balls): Lawrence 27 (18); S Curran 5-16

Oval Invincibles won by 30 runs

Scorecard. Table

Sam Curran starred with bat and ball as Oval Invincibles comfortably beat London Spirit by 30 runs in The Hundred men's competition at Lord's.

The England all-rounder hit an unbeaten 51 from 22 balls as the Invincibles reached 147-5, before taking 5-16 and a hat-trick as he routed the Spirit tail.

The Invincibles started slowly, scoring just four from their first 14 balls and having Will Jacks bowled by Olly Stone, but Dawid Malan (38) helped them steadily accumulate runs.

Curran arrived at the crease with his side 80-3 after 66 balls, and he set about clubbing six sixes to help set a challenging target.

The hosts fell behind the rate in their reply, hampered by the visitors' strong rank of slow bowlers, with Adam Zampa also taking 3-22.

With Spirit needing to swing hard to have any chance of victory, Curran had Matt Critchley caught in deep, then removed Liam Dawson, Stone and the formidable Andre Russell with consecutive deliveries.

He sealed the succes with the lbw dismissal of Dan Worrall, his five wickets in nine balls bringing a rapid end to the London derby.

What else do you need to know?

2023 champions Invincibles return to the top of the table, level with Southern Brave, and now have the two leading wicket takers in the competition in Zampa (10) and Curran (9). Spirit sit one place off bottom with one win from four.
Curran's hat-trick is the third in the history of The Hundred men's competition following Imran Tahir in 2021 and Tymal Mills last year.
Although he hit six sixes, Curran didn't hit a single four. He particularly enjoyed batting against Nathan Ellis, striking three successive deliveries from the Australian seamer clean over the boundary with the second of the trio, a no-ball, costing the Spirit eight runs.
Invincibles captain Sam Billings (17 from 22) retired himself out with 13 balls remaining to bring in the big-hitting Donovan Ferreira. However the South African was caught and bowled for two by Ellis after facing three balls.
New England Test call-up Jordan Cox scored 14 from 19 for Invincibles, before he was caught by Shimron Hetmyer off the bowling of Liam Dawson.

'Sam Curran's day out' - what they said

Invincibles all-rounder Sam Curran: "I guess you don't get many days like that. Most importantly we got the two points that we needed.

"I think the boys said the wicket was slow and turning quite a bit. The shorter side I knew I could use that boundary to my advantage, for a few came out the middle.

"I've got that bowler's mindset when I'm batting, trying not to pre-meditate too much. I think today was a day where you had to be quite predictable as one side was so short.

"That whole over I was thinking, 'where am I going to bowl to Russell?' He knew where I was bowling, fortunately he edged it."

Invincibles captain Sam Billings: "Unbelievable win. Sam Curran's day out - it was just nice to be out there! As good as it gets in this form of the game.

"It was a really tough pitch, we thought with 145 we were well over par. You're never totally out of the woods if Andre Russell gets going, but we were comfortable with what we got."

On his retirement: "It was completely tactical because I could not hit the ball - we've got so much power down the bottom. I just couldn't get going. I thought someone could do a job better than me, it's not about me, it's about the team."