Sunrisers Leeds 201 for 4 (Marsh 50, Rickelton 40, Crawley 34) beat Welsh Fire 130 for 6 (Short 43, Root 31, Carse 3-24) by 71 runs
Sunrisers Leeds signed off from Headingley with a perfect home record by thrashing Welsh Fire to put one foot in the knockout stages.
Sunrisers will seal a top-three spot if they beat Manchester Super Giants at Old Trafford on Tuesday and could still qualify if they lose, after boosting their Net Run Rate (NRR) with a 71-run thrashing on Sunday afternoon. They could even finish top, and qualify directly for Sunday’s final, if Southern Brave beat Trent Rockets on Monday night and they win in Manchester.
But this result was a significant blow to the Fire’s hopes, and leaves them needing not only to beat London Spirit in their final home game on Wednesday afternoon, but to hope two other results fall in their favour in the final round of games.
This was a complete performance from Sunrisers, whose prolific opening partnership of Mitchell Marsh and Ryan Rickelton put them ahead of the game early on by adding 89 in the first 51 balls to set things up for their middle order.
Marsh top-scored with 50 off 34 balls, and was the only Sunrisers batter to score at a strike rate below 180. Rickelton sliced Chris Woakes to short third for 40 off 22, but that only brought in Harry Brook, who hit a typically flamboyant 23 off 11 balls before chipping Jordan Clark to mid-off.
Lockie Ferguson was the outstanding Fire bowler and had Marsh caught at mid-off, but Zak Crawley and Dan Lawrence ensured that the fast start was not wasted: Crawley belted four sixes in his 12-ball 34, while Lawrence struck 29 off 15 as Sunrisers reached 200 for the second home game in a row.
In response, Phil Salt and Matthew Short struggled to break free, and when Brydon Carse – who finished with 3 for 24 – got rid of both to leave the innings stagnating at 73 for 2 off 58, the game was as good as up.
Nathan Ellis dismissed Joe Root and Rachin Ravindra in three balls to rubber stamp the victory and the Fire crawled to 130 for 6, their second heavy defeat in a row.
