Willey, Milne hold nerve as Spirit edge Fire

Adam Milne, Jamie Overton and David Willey combined to hold their nerves and defend 27 off the last 20 balls to help London Spirit secure a six-run win over Welsh Fire. Fire ended their campaign in The Men’s Hundred 2026, in Cardiff, on Wednesday, in fifth position. Spirit, who registered their third win of the season, ended their campaign second last on the points table.

Put in to bat, Jonny Bairstow’s 19-ball 34 laid the foundation for Spirit’s 131 for 8, in what was an otherwise uninspiring batting display. Chris Woakes challenged the batters early on with some movement. With Lhuan-dre Pretorius struggling to find rhythm in his 11-ball 6, much of the burden of giving the early momentum fell on Bairstow. He slammed sixes off Marco Jansen, Ferguson and Woakes, but the hosts kept striking at regular intervals, dismissing Bairstow soon after Pretorius and Liam Livingstone were sent back.

For a brief while Overton took the attack to Fire bowlers, slamming three boundaries and a six in the space of seven deliveries, but Woakes and Jansen managed to keep a lid on the scoring towards the end.

However, with Matthew Short getting cleaned up in the opening set, Willey ensured the threat to the target wasn’t coming any time soon. Only 17 runs were scored off the first 17 balls of the chase. Phil Salt and Joe Root attempted to make substantial contributions with regular boundaries, but they ended up chewing more dot balls than they would’ve liked. Jordan Cox cut loose briefly en route to his 28-ball 44, but the Spirit bowlers struck back dismissing Cox, Kohler-Cadmore and Rachin Ravindra in quick succession in the death. The late surge that they needed never came courtesy some fine bowling and they eventually fell agonisingly short of the target. Needing seven off the last ball, Jansen was caught at deep mid wicket.

Brief Scores: London Spirit 131/8 in 100 balls (Jonny Bairstow 34, Jamie Overton 21; Marco Jansen 2-16, Chris Woakes 2-18) beat Welsh Fire 125/7 in 100 balls (Jordan Cox 44, Joe Root 31; David Willey 3-20, Adam Milne 2-23) by 6 runs