Adams stars with bat and ball to send The Blaze to defeat at Hampshire
Georgia Adams hit 49 before returning four wickets as Hampshire Hawks confirmed their place at the Vitality Blast women’s competition Finals Day with victory against The Blaze.
Hawks skipper Adams was the only player to get used to a slow pitch but fell one short of a half-century, as Hampshire scrimped their way to 151, with Charli Knott and Grace Ballinger picking up three wickets each.
Then Adams, with fellow spinner Amanda-Jade Wellington grabbing two, kept The Blaze to 128 – with four for 16, the second-best figures of her T20 career.
It meant the Hawks are guaranteed to finish in the top four and will play at the Kia Oval on Friday 17 July, whereas The Blaze sit fourth with a two-point buffer to Somerset with two fixtures to go.
The Blaze head coach Craig Cumming said his side had to buck a worrying trend in their defeats.
“More of the same, unfortunately. It mirrored the last two games before this, where, bowling-wise, they got off to a good powerplay, and then we pulled it back,” he said.
"It was a good total on a surface that was slow, but one we were really confident chasing. And when you're 50-odd for none at one stage in the powerplay, and you need six runs an over, you think you're under control. But to come up as short as we did shows that we were completely outplayed in that period, which is a continuation of the last two games, so that's three in a row. It's a real trend, so we've got to find our solutions really quickly to go again Friday.
“We expect that. That's what we're good at. We've got highly skilled bowlers, and we were able to do well in those key moments and pull them back. It was a good surface, but if you bowled well, you can make it tough.
"We pulled back through that period, but at the end of the day they've just got to score more runs than we do, and they did by a considerable margin. Whatever we kept them to, we should have been chasing with a lot more ease.
“That’s the game. From a bowling point of view, you’re gonna have overs where you get hit; it's about how you respond. Batting is the same. You might have a couple of dot balls, but it's how you respond. We did that with the ball, but we just didn't do it with the bat.
“We wanted to make use of the powerplay and the new ball coming on, and she [Kelly] got us off to a brilliant start. I was more than happy with the way she got out. If there's no final leg, she just lapped for four, do it again: you're on top. But even then, we were in a really strong position. They were always going to bring the spin on, but we were aware of that. We just didn't play with enough smarts and enough skill to be able to counter it, which is really disappointing.”
“Something's not quite clicking for us in that middle phase, and it's been like that for a bit of the season.
Other than Adams, Hampshire’s batting never found the go-button, as The Blaze squeezed with an exceptional bowling display.
Australian Knott, who spent two seasons with Southern Vipers and Hampshire, knocked back Ella McCaughan’s middle stump with her first delivery.
It broke up some lucid batting by Adams, as she swung the ball, mostly to the legside, for seven fours and two lusty sixes but fell one run shy of a half-century to Knott.
The Hawks found promising partnerships of 26, 35 and 38 for the first three wickets but slow scoring left plenty to do at the death, and that led to six wickets falling in the last six overs.
Josie Groves caught and bowled both Cesca Sweet and Rhi Southby in the 15th over, before Ballinger bowled Abi Norgrove and Naomi Dattani in successive deliveries two balls later.
Ballinger and Knott both completed their three-fors in the final two overs as Blaze kept the hosts to 151.
Marie Kelly and Georgia Elwiss attacked the chase by smashing 44 runs in the first 26 balls of the innings.
Daisy Gibb was making her first appearance of the competition – after breaking a finger – but having whacked her first ball with the bat for six to mark her comeback, she ended the opening stand by bowling Kelly.
Like Hampshire after Adams, things slowed up for The Blaze in the face of a wall of spin – which quickly led to wickets.
Top order trio Kathryn Bryce, Knott and Elwiss all fell in the space of 16 balls to Adams and Wellington as Hampshire took control.
Emma Jones ended a 40-ball spell without a boundary, but was caught off the following ball and then Sarah Bryce was stumped at the start of the next over.
Adams added a third and fourth wicket in her final over as Hampshire trumped The Blaze’s bowling performance to go unbeaten at home for the entire tournament.