Welsh Fire 138 for 3 (Root 58*, Salt 46) beat Birmingham Phoenix 137 for 9 (Clarke 35, Ferguson 2-20, Jansen 2-21) by seven wickets
Root’s return to the England Test captaincy was confirmed by the ECB two days ago, and he marked the occasion by taking his new franchise home with four balls to spare. It was their third win in four matches, and a commanding performance after a disappointing home defeat to Trent Rockets on Wednesday.
“That’s how you want to play cricket, being ruthless and getting it done at the end,” Root said. “We’ve got a lot of depth in different areas, a lot of bases covered and good variety in our attack.
“We’ve also got a good understanding of how we want to chase down totals, and if we can find a way to make Cardiff a very difficult place to come and play in particular, then it will go a long way to ensuring we get through to the back-end of the tournament.”
Rachin Ravindra then joined Root but he never got going on a crabby pitch, and it was no surprise when Chris Wood induced a cross-bat hoick as Ravindra looked in vain to push on.
Cox had earlier taken two brilliant self-relay catches to account for Owen (18) and Joe Clarke – the only Phoenix batter to find any real fluency – for 35. Rehan Ahmed flickered briefly but was involved in two calamitous mix-ups as the Phoenix’s innings ran aground.
The Fire’s variety in their bowling stocks was again on show. Today it was the turn of Marco Jansen and Lockie Ferguson to share two wickets apiece. They used five bowlers, all of them internationals.
While a total of 137 was never likely to be enough with Root in this form, the Phoenix scrapped hard to stay in the contest. But with five needed off the final six balls, Root reverse-scooped Mahmood for four then snuck through for the winning single.
The Phoenix have now lost three matches in a row, and will likely need to win their remaining four matches to qualify for the knockout stages.
