The Hundred Women’s 2022, Match 17, Review: Lauren Bell, Amanda Wellington share seven wickets as Southern Brave run riot against Trent Rockets

Southern Brave completed a comprehensive ten-wicket victory against Trent Rockets on Thursday to make it five wins out of five in this year’s tournament on the back of marvelous bowling performances by Lauren Bell and Amanda-Jade Wellington, before Smriti Mandhana and Danni Wyatt completed the formalities.

The Brave, led by Anya Shrubsole, elected to field first and started off brilliantly as Lauren Bell dismissed Bryony Smith on the second delivery of the match. The Rockets were on their way to recovery through Marie Kelly’s counterattacking innings, but her departure saw the opposition wrestle back the momentum.

Elyse Villani and Nat Sciver stitched a much-needed partnership in the middle overs. Still, they failed to score at a quick rate, especially the skipper Nat Sciver, who had an abysmal stay in the middle, scoring 19 off 30 deliveries without a single boundary as the opposition bowlers had a stranglehold on her.

Amanda-Jade Wellington annihilated the Trent batters with her immaculate spin bowling, scalping 3/18, placing her at the top of the season’s wicket-taking rankings. The leggie also stretched her lead at the summit as the leading wicket-taker in the competition’s history, with 25 dismissals to her name.

While the spinner did her business in the middle overs, it was Lauren Bell, who terrorized the batters at the beginning with two crucial wickets before grabbing another two on the last two deliveries of the first innings to finish with astonishingly impressive figures of 4/10 as the Trent Rockets crept to this season’s lowest total of 88 runs on the board.

Mandhana and Wyatt had a field day with the bat in hand

The match seemed like a foregone conclusion at the end of the first innings, and it proved to be the case as the opening duo of Smriti Mandhana, and Danni Wyatt put the Trent Rockets out of their misery by wrapping up the match with 44 balls to spare. The pair registered an unbeaten stand of 94 runs for the first wicket, with Mandhana scoring a blistering half-century, studded with some gorgeous shots, while Wyatt took a liking to the slower bowlers.

The Southern Brave are the dominant force in the Hundred this year, and they have pretty much sealed their spot for the final, for the second season in a row. Meanwhile, Trent Rockets will keep an eye out on the other results in the competition and will need help from other teams if they wish to finish in the top three.