Well that's all for today folks! This is Anirudh signing off on behalf of my co-commentator Chinmay, and our scorer/analyst Paras! See you on the next one!
Matthew Wade | Hero of the Match: "It was an interesting game. We were going to chase it down in 72/73 balls but didn't go to plan. At the halfway mark, we focussed on just getting the win. We bowled really well, Ravi obviously played quite well and hit that shorter boundary. When you lose early wickets, it gets tough. Plan was to access the shorter boundary. I enjoy the big games and this one has been interesting, just trying to be versatile for the team."
What a game this has been. Birmingham Phoenix have won this match on the last ball by 1 wicket.They did not qualify for the eliminators but they had something to celebrate at the end. London Spirit's have made it to the eliminators on the basis of good run rate.
Winning the toss first and forcing the London Spirit to bat first, Phoenix stopped the Spirit’s on 139 runs. All thanks to Ravi Bopara and his 5 huge sixes in the death overs that helped the London Spirit’s to get to an respectable total.
Coming to chase, Phoenix got off to a very bad start losing the debutant Sol Budinger and Will Smeed in the first set to Liam Dawson. After that skipper Moeen Ali hit a couple of boundaries before he and Chris benjamin both got out on the team total of 34 runs. Phoenix was losing wickets on one end but Matthew Wade was holding onto the other end kept on scoring runs and kept on hitting boundaries on a regular interval, keeping his team in the game.
He played a magic innings and tried his best to get his team into the eliminators as phoenix needed a big win here. But he did not get support from any batters from the other end before scoring 81 runs of 42 balls.
Mason Crane and Liam Dawson were too good with their spin bowling, chipping 4 and 3 wickets respectively into their bag. Rest all of them remained wicket less.
But it was the Australian leg spinner, Tanveer Sangha and the quickie Tom Helm in the last two overs who got Phoenix to home on the last ball.
20th Five
Birmingham Phoenix
140/9
Tom Helm
11(12)
Tanveer Sangha
13(9)
Bradley Wheal
0-27(15 b)
100b B Wheal to T Sangha
1 AND BIRMINGHAM PHOENIX HAVE PULLED A RABBIT OUT OF THE HAT! ALL CREDIT TO WADE FOR KEEPING HIS TEAM IN THE MATCH! THEY WIN THE GAME BY 1 WICKET! Full and straight, on the middle stump, Sangha flicks it to deep square for a single.
What has Wheal done here. This is unforgivible. And that missed run out, that would have been a tie in this ball, if the ball would have hit the stumps.
100b B Wheal to T Sangha
WD WIDE! A costly extra this one? Length delivery, goes down the leg side!
99b B Wheal to T Helm
1 Back of length delivery, on the off stump, drags it to long on to pick up a single.
98b B Wheal to T Sangha
1 Similar line and length as the previous one, Sangha pulls it through mid-wicket for a single.