The Cricketer looks at the main talking points from the women's Hundred clash between Oval Invincibles and London Spirit
Oval Invincibles were well beaten when Amelia Kerr came to bowl the final delivery of the match, but that didn't stop the New Zealander pulling off a sublime bit of skill to draw a line under and morale-boosting win.
The legspinner had already accounted for Alice Capsey and Eva Gray before Ryana MacDonald-Gay came down the pitch looking to launch the ball down the ground.
Kerr instinctively flung herself to her right-hand side to pluck the ball out of the air with aplomb. Invincibles were all out for 97 and it was finally celebration time for the luckless Spirit.
Amelia Kerr 🙌
— The Hundred (@thehundred) August 15, 2023
3 wickets for 16 runs, including THIS caught and bowled! 🤩#TheHundred pic.twitter.com/hp3y7XButT
On another day, Marizanne Kapp would have led Oval Invincibles to an impressive victory, securing back-to-back wins in the competition for the first time in 2023.
Two wickets, a catch and 30 runs in the chase meant it was another polished all-round performance from the South African.
Now without the services of Dane van Niekerk, she'll be relishing the arrival of Nadine de Klerk for the closing stages of the competition as a replacement.
The stand-out moment of the display came in the first innings. Heather Knight had middled virtually every ball of her innings and she did the same again when Kapp sent a half-volley her way. The England captain played down the line of the ball, connecting well, but landed the ball straight into the grateful hands of Kapp, who produced a fine reaction grab at the other end.
It left London Spirit 15 for 2 after being inserted, a perilous position that would require plenty of character to recover from.
Marizanne Kapp again impressed with bat and ball (Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)
One of the narratives of the English summer has been around the speed of play, and what penalties can be applied to the worst offenders.
Failing to start the final set before the cut-off time - teams are given 65 minutes to bowl their allocation - means Invincibles were forced to bring an extra fielder inside the circle for the final eight balls of the Spirit innings.
Lauren Filer and Tara Norris took full advantage. Punctuating a record 10th-wicket stand, Filer now had the license to go into attack mode and went 6-4-2 off the final three deliveries to lift Spirit to 118 for 9.
And as the Invincibles' chase got away from them early on, it was an uplift that only grew in importance.
It helped highlight that, while the laws around the regulations need to be reviewed and adapted in certain formats, the punishments do have teeth in the white-ball game.
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