Matthews hits unbeaten 78 as Fire beat Spirit

Hayley Matthews scored her unbeaten 78 off 46 balls as Fire moved third in the table

The Hundred women's competition, Lord's

London Spirit 150-5 (100 balls): Gibson 41 (25); Davies 2-19

Welsh Fire 151-4 (96 balls): Matthews 78* (46); Gibson 2-28

Fire won by six wickets

Scorecard. Table

Hayley Matthews hit an unbeaten 78 as Welsh Fire beat London Spirit by six wickets in The Hundred women's competition at Lord's.

The hard-hitting West Indies player paced her 46-ball knock perfectly to help Fire chase down a tough target of 151 with five balls to spare.

Danielle Gibson hit 41 off 25 balls for Spirit and seamer Freya Davies was the pick of the Fire bowlers, dismissing England captain Heather Knight for five and Meg Lanning (31) in the space of three balls.

Fire struggled for fluency early on before Matthews stepped on the accelerator.

With 16 needed from 10 balls, Matthew saw it off in style with consecutive boundaries off the bowling of Deepti Sharma.

Spirit suffer a first defeat in this year's competition and remain second in the table, with Fire moving into third place.

What else do you need to know?

• Matthews was dropped on 35 as Eva Gray palmed the ball over the boundary for six.

• Former South Africa seamer Shabnim Ismail – who in March recorded the fastest ever delivery in women's cricket - missed out through injury but Fire are hopeful she will return for their next game.

• Foes turned team-mates Sharma and Charlie Dean found themselves batting together for Spirit. The pair shared a controversial moment in 2022 when India's Sharma controversially dismissed England's Dean with a 'Mankad' dismissal.

• Fire spinner Georgia Davis took her sixth wicket of the competition to become joint-top wicket taker in the 2024 women's Hundred.

'We felt we had to take it deep' - what they said

Player of the match Hayley Matthews: "I gave myself a chance early on and then started seeing it pretty well. Halfway through, we felt we had to take it deep to give us a chance to win the game."

What is happening on Friday?

There is a Hundred double-header on Friday, with Oval Invincibles facing Northern Superchargers at The Kia Oval (women's at 15:00 BST and men's at 18:30).

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