Oval Invincibles 147 for 8 (Evans 67*, Jacks 44) beat London Spirit 146 for 7 (Morgan 41, Denly 35, Shamsi 3-25) by two wickets
Laurie Evans rescued a tough chase with 67 not out off 37 balls to put Oval Invincibles second in the table heading into the final round of group games, ensuring they will qualify for the Hundred's knockout stages if they beat Southern Brave on Monday night.
Invincibles slipped to 14 for 3 in pursuit of 147 on a slowish pitch, and were wobbling at 52 for 4 when Evans came in at No. 6 to join Will Jacks. With three genuine tailenders from No. 9-11, there was no margin for error, but he launched a stunning counterattack to relieve the scoring pressure.
Jacks' dismissal, pulling Ravi Bopara straight to long-on, precipitated another stumble. Evans continued to score freely but Alex Blake and Tom Curran were both bowled, and Saqib Mahmood was run out looking for two with six needed off six balls. When Blake Cullen missed his yorker, Evans smoked him for six over long-on, keeping Oval's perfect home record intact and lifting 19,000 home fans off their seats.
Spirit, the Hundred's runaway horse after losing their first four completed games, had scrambled up to a par score thanks to Eoin Morgan's 41 - which included five sixes - and a late cameo from Roelof van der Merwe, with Tabraiz Shamsi and Sunil Narine again coming to the fore in the middle phase, as they have throughout Invincibles' unbeaten home run.
While Invincibles are guaranteed a knockout spot if they win their final game, they can still qualify with a defeat if other results go their way.
Evans' epic
Evans has spent the last four years batting almost exclusively in the top three for his various teams around the world, but has been forced into the middle order due to Invincibles' top-order strength. He was stranded at No. 8 in their last game, much to his frustration, and admitted that his position had changed so many times in the competition that he wasn't sure of the score when he came in.
He signalled his intent early with a perfect one, two, three off van der Merwe - a fierce slap through point off the back foot sandwiched between two lofted sixes over wide long-off - and scored the only boundary of the night off Mason Crane's bowling with a monstrous slog-sweep over midwicket. His strike rate of 181.81 owed much to his ability to hit the gaps and run hard, as well as his boundary-hitting: he hit seven of the 37 balls he faced for two, playing clips and pushes with soft hands to hit the fielders in the deep.
"It's one of the hardest things to do, particularly when guys at the top of the order haven't really got going," Morgan said. "You need to focus on process-driven things in order to take you where you need to be and Laurie did that. He constructed his innings really well, adapted to situations - they ran twos and ran us around the field when they needed to, and then attacked the boundary when it was appropriate. It was as well as I've seen him play."
Evans said: "I've been up and down the order in this side. My mindset is that if you're there at the end, you're going to win the game. I've done that throughout my career and I take pride in doing it. I haven't really got going in the Hundred so it's nice to put a match-winning knock in - I'm grateful to Moods [Tom Moody]. You work as hard as you can to improve year on year and I've experienced a lot of things now, so it's just nice to produce it in this tournament."
Jacks in a box
Evans was quick to praise Jacks' innings and without it, the chase would have been over before it had begun. Jason Roy and Narine had holed out to fielders in the deep in the space of three balls from van der Merwe and with Colin Ingram falling cheaply, seemingly suffering some discomfort after being hit on the elbow, Jacks' 44 was a vital knock.
He was crucial in making use of the Powerplay: Invincibles were 14 for 3 with eight balls left of it, but he hit four boundaries in five balls by clipping Brad Wheal off his pads, then cutting and sweeping van der Merwe for three in a row. He also pulled two sixes - one out of the screws, the other fumbled over the rope by an off-balance Joe Cracknell - and offered some support for Evans in a stand of 57; the next-highest score of the innings was Sam Billings' 9.
Morgan's moment
Morgan was a long-term advocate of a city-based short-form competition in England to rival the Big Bash and IPL and has been vocal in his praise of the Hundred throughout its first season, suggesting 10 days in that it was "already better" than the T20 Blast.
But on the pitch, he had struggled to make much of an impact: his first five innings brought 85 runs with a top score of 27, and his Spirit side were eliminated at the earliest possibility opportunity after four consecutive defeats. His own struggles with the bat were an extension of a wider pattern, too: his top score across 14 innings in the Blast, England's T20Is and the Hundred this summer was 38, and he had only scored at a 140+ strike rate in three of them.
"I've had a slow start to this competition and it's been disappointing, to be honest," he said afterwards. "As a senior player you want to score runs earlier in the tournament and contribute more, and I haven't done that."
This was a welcome return to form. Billings tried to sneak in five balls of Jacks' offspin, with him turning the ball away from the left-hander, but Morgan decided to take him on and flay him for four over extra cover, then six over square leg. His best shot was a cross-batted swat down the ground for six off Saqib Mahmood, skipping down the pitch and taking on an 88mph short ball, and he eventually fell for 41 off 20, top-edging a catch while trying to slog-sweep Shamsi for a third consecutive six.
