Chris Jordan closes out for Southern Brave as London Spirit stay winless

Tymal Mills also miserly as Spirit stumble despite highest Powerplay score of tournament

Southern Brave 145 for 6 (Davies 50) beat London Spirit 141 for 7 (Inglis 55, Garton 2-30) by four runs

Jordan closed out his over and Mills conceded only three runs from the first three balls of his final set, but with the Brave missing the cut-off, they had to bowl the final seven with four fielders outside the 30-yard circle, rather than the usual five. Mills used his back-of-the-hand slower balls to great effect, having Mohammad Nabi caught at short extra cover to leave 11 required off five balls and finish with miserly figures of 1 for 15.

Roelof van der Merwe sat deep in his crease to thump a slower ball over the covers to leave six needed from the final three balls, but Jordan nailed three yorkers to concede only one more, with de Kock’s brilliant direct hit running out Blake Cullen as he attempted to scramble a bye.

Dogged Davies
Brave scrapped up to 145 after being asked to bat first, with de Kock – who teed off for 27 off 14 balls at the top of the order – the only batter to find the boundary with any kind of regularity.

The long and short of it
With one boundary significantly shorter than the other, both teams set about targeting it. Brave embraced the flexible batting line-ups Mahela Jayawardene has used to great effect with Mumbai Indians, maintaining a left-right combination for the first 89 balls of their innings, and hit seven of their first nine boundaries towards the short side.

Spirit went even further: Rossington lashed 30 off the first 11 balls he faced to remove any kind of scoring pressure in the chase, 24 of them through three fours and two sixes hit square of the wicket into the Mound Stand. Rossington’s transformation into ‘Universe Ross’ did not last beyond the 27th delivery, as he became the first of George Garton’s victims in successive balls, but by that stage he had led them to the highest Powerplay score of the Hundred so far – 68 for 0 – with Inglis helping him out by flaying Mills and Jordan over the off-side ring.

Spirit squeezed
Brave’s wayward start with the ball left them needing wickets through the middle phase of the innings, and Garton’s two-in-two after the Powerplay exposed the Spirit’s middle order which had faltered in the first two games of the competition.

They failed to hit a boundary in the 35 balls immediately after the Powerplay, with Jake Lintott particularly effective with his left-arm wristspin, and Jordan – expensive in his first over – had Ravi Bopara caught at deep backward square with a short ball when he came back for his second set. By then, he had also pulled off a lightning-quick direct hit as Eoin Morgan carelessly took on his reflexes at mid-off.

Inglis pulled Garton for two sixes to reach a determined half-century off 42 balls, taking the equation to 18 off 15 balls, but when his reverse-ramp fell into de Kock’s outstretched glove, the picture changed significantly, and their lower-middle order failed to get them over the line.

Brave’s Mumbai impression
Jayawardene’s Mumbai Indians side have made a habit of starting IPL seasons slowly – they have lost their opening game for nine years in a row – but have regularly overcome early setbacks to storm up the table and end up winning the competition. His Brave side appear to be on a similar path: they were beaten in their first two outings but have now won back-to-back games and it would be no surprise to see them storm into the knockouts.