Chris Jordan, England's cricket sensation, wreaked havoc with his six onslaught and delivered an electrifying performance, scoring 70 off 32 balls, leading Southern Brave to their first victory in The Hundred 2023. In a closely contested match, Brave managed to edge past Welsh Fire by a narrow margin of two runs.
In a game that saw the Brave team recover from an initial score of 76/8, with three wickets taken by Pakistan's Haris Rauf, Jordan turned the tide. He boosted the total to 147/8 with an impressive tally of seven sixes and three fours.
Key contributors to Brave's defense, Rehan Ahmed, Craig Overton, and Tymal Mills, all took two wickets each, allowing the 2021 champions to bounce back from their initial defeat to Trent Rockets.
With eight wickets down after 76 balls, Brave seemed on the brink of a humiliating sub-100 total. Rauf posed the major challenge for the home team, claiming three wickets for 27 runs. He dismissed Finn Allen, George Garton, and James Fuller, significantly denting Brave's prospects.
Rauf's fellow fast-bowler, Shaheen Shah Afridi, marked his return to the Ageas Bowl with Devon Conway's wicket. James Vince, Tim David, Leus du Plooy, and Ahmed too fell without adding much to the score.
However, Jordan counterattacked, hitting Rauf for his first six. The onslaught continued on Roelof van der Merwe's left-arm spin, resulting in multiple maximums. Jordan achieved his fifty in 26 balls, with his partnership with Overton reaching 71 in 25 balls, leaving the Fire with a much more challenging target than initially expected.
Despite some resistance from the Fire's Luke Wells and Stevie Eskinazi, and a late surge by David Willey, Brave managed to secure their victory with Mills dismissing Willey on the last ball.
This thrilling cricket match shows Southern Brave's potential in The Hundred 2023 and highlights Chris Jordan's invaluable contribution to the team's first win of the season.
Meanwhile, awestruck former England batter Michael Carberry on Jordan's blitzkrieg said, "In the circumstances, I haven't seen a better white-ball knock than Chris Jordan's for some time. It was a clever knock. He just had the IQ to know when to put his foot down and then to play smart."
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