The Hundred 2023: Sophia Dunkley stars as Welsh Fire beat London Spirit to progress
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Sophia Dunkley and Tammy Beaumont struck 53 from the 25-ball powerplay
The Hundred women's competition, Sophia Gardens |
Welsh Fire 161-4: Dunkley 68 (48); Munro 2-24 |
London Spirit 138-7: Ghosh 34 (26); Dunkley 2-15 |
Fire win by 23 runs |
Sophia Dunkley impressed with both bat and ball as Welsh Fire beat London Spirit to progress to the women's Hundred knockout stages.
The England batter struck 68, putting on a brisk stand of 75 for the opening wicket with Tammy Beaumont, as Fire posted an impressive 161-4.
Richa Ghosh and Heather Knight shared 68 for the fourth Spirit wicket before Dunkley dismissed both within one set.
Spirit continued to lose steady wickets as they fell 23 runs short in Cardiff.
Second-placed Fire have now guaranteed their place in the knockouts, while Spirit remain seventh.
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What else do you need to know?
Welsh Fire only won one game last season as they finished bottom. But the player draft held before this season allowed them to reboot their team and several of their signings have helped turn their fortunes. Dunkley arrived from Southern Brave, while South African seamer Shabnim Ismail, who took the top-order wickets of Spirit's Dani Gibson and Grace Harris, moved from Oval Invincibles.
Dunkley and Beaumont struck 53 from the opening 25-ball powerplay, hitting 10 fours. They slowed in the following 25, scoring 22, before 21-year-old Sophie Munro broke their partnership, bowling Beaumont with a slower ball and having Laura Harris caught behind in consecutive deliveries.
Hayley Matthews returned for Fire after missing the past two matches with a shoulder injury. She scored 36, mostly in conjunction with Dunkley, before being run out off the final delivery of the innings attempting an unlikely second run.
'We'll stick to our guns' - what they said
Match hero Sophia Dunkley: "We're just playing brave cricket all the way through. Finals can be nervy but we'll try and stick to our guns and play like we have all the way through the tournament. We want to keep the momentum going.
"It was a hard decision to sit out of England's series against Sri Lanka but there is a lot of cricket around and it is the right thing to do for me at the moment. It was the right call to miss the first two games of this competition too."
You can watch Hundred matches on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer every Wednesday and Saturday throughout the competition, alongside both finals on Sunday, 27 August. More details.