By Huzaifa Yousafzai from Utilita Bowl
London Spirit’s powerful batting line-up massively underperformed in their opening game as the Southern Brave’s fiery pace attack left the visiting side “probably 25 runs short” in the first innings.
An International quality middle order consisting of Dan Lawrence, Ravi Bopara, Andre Russell and Shimron Hetmyer failed to make any meaningful contribution for the Spirit before Liam Dawson rescued them to a below par total of 138.
In the run chase, a 95 run opening stand including a fifty from Southern Brave’s captain James Vince, guided the former champions to a comfortable 7 wicket victory with 11 balls still remaining.
Hampshire all-rounder Liam Dawson scored 45 runs from just 19 balls on his home ground at the Utilita Bowl but admits the lack of partnerships led to a faltering batting performance from his side.
“We lost three quick wickets for maybe 20 or 25 runs, so we were always up against it, we kept on losing wickets throughout the innings and never really got any momentum into the back end.”
“You have got to be positive in this sort of cricket, but you have also got to assess conditions and understand what sort of score you need.”
London Spirit’s captain had been made available to play at the final minute, but Dawson said he was fully behind skipper Lawrence’s decision to bat first at the toss.
“I think it was a really good wicket you know, (it has been good) the whole summer here. If you get through the new ball and get used to the bounce, as it can be quite steep, it becomes a really nice batting wicket which I think it showed in their innings. We were probably 25 runs short of where we needed to be, and we know we could be a lot better than we were tonight.”
Despite having fewer runs to defend than they would have liked, Dawson explained that early strikes were the key to winning but an excellent innings from the opposition captain put the game to bed.
“Without doubt, we knew if we had early wickets, we could sort of squeeze in the middle because of the size the ground but yeah, we didn’t get those wickets, so it always sort of put us on the back foot. We were always chasing the game, so we had to get early wickets, we didn’t get them and (James) Vince played brilliantly.”
