Males's Hundred 2024, OI-M vs BP-M 1st Match Match Report, July 23, 2024

Oval Invincibles 93 for two (Billings 31) beat Birmingham Phoenix 89 (Zampa 3-11) by eight wickets

Defending champions Oval Invincibles romped to victory underneath the lights at The Kia Oval because the fourth 12 months of The Hundred received underway with two wins out of two for the lads’s and girls’s South London group.

The Invincibles tempo duo of Saqib Mahmood and Mohammad Amir ripped the guts out of Birmingham Phoenix’s first-innings effort, after captain Moeen Ali gained the toss and determined to bat, decreasing them to 10 for 4 after simply 17 balls.

Amir and Mahmood took two wickets apiece, a welcome return to motion from damage for England’s Mahmood who final performed a recreation within the Hundred nearly three years in the past, in 2021.

After Amanda-Jade Wellington took 3 for 9 for Oval Invincibles ladies’s group within the day’s first recreation, one other Australian leg-spinner within the form of Adam Zampa replicated her success, skidding his technique to figures of three for 11.

The trendy Jacob Bethell and buccaneering Benny Howell did their finest to restore the top-order harm for Phoenix, however their eventual complete of 89 would have been under-par on any floor and by no means appeared sufficient.

In reply, Invincibles had been unfussed and unhurried – waltzing their technique to an eight-wicket win with 31 balls left. Captain Sam Billings added some late hitting, after Tawanda Muyeye had given the gang of 23,621 a glimpse of his expertise with a 14-ball 23, to make it the proper begin for each Oval Invincibles groups.

Meerkat Match Hero Zampa stated: “It was good to begin that manner, particularly at house, and it was good for us to proceed our success from final 12 months. It is a good feeling and it is good to be within the winner’s circle immediately.

“It wasn’t a lot of a spinning wicket, to be sincere. I get pleasure from bowling right here, I feel it skids on a bit and if you happen to get that proper it may be arduous to hit. I attempted to assault the stumps as a lot as attainable at present and it labored.

“We have had a little bit of a chat about what we did nicely final 12 months and what works right here [The Kia Oval]. Specifically, beginning nicely right here was actually vital so we talked in regards to the lengths it’s important to bowl right here and how you can do nicely on this floor. A whole lot of our guys have good expertise of enjoying right here so we have had a little bit of speak about that.

“It is a actually fulfilling competitors, I like enjoying in The Hundred. You’re feeling prefer it’s a extremely alien idea however when you’re enjoying in it, it is Twenty20 cricket with a few tactical modifications – and actually good tactical modifications that I get pleasure from being part of: 65-minute innings, that is the sweet-spot, I find it irresistible.”

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