Deepti Sharma’s 3 for 13 holds Welsh Fire to 121, and Sunrisers Leeds win with 26 balls left
Three wickets for 13 runs off 20 balls at Headingley, and Welsh Fire never recovered from losing four wickets for 12. Sunrisers Leeds move back into the top-three argument.
Aug 9, 2026
Deepti Sharma bowled 20 balls at Headingley on Sunday, conceded 13 runs, and took three wickets. Eight of those balls were dots. In a competition where a run a ball is considered containment, that is a spell that decides a match on its own. It left Welsh Fire on 121 for 8 from their hundred with only Freya Kemp standing between them and something far worse, and Sunrisers Leeds got the runs with 26 balls to spare.
Four wickets for 12 runs, and Welsh Fire were gone
Sunrisers Leeds won the toss and put Welsh Fire in. Kate Cross had Sarah Bryce lbw with nine on the board, and for a while Georgia Voll and Kemp steadied things to 51. Then Deepti trapped Voll lbw, and the innings fell apart in the space of two overs’ worth of balls.
Hannah Baker had Georgia Wareham caught by Phoebe Litchfield at 61, then bowled Orla Prendergast for nought three balls later. Deepti had Heather Graham caught by Cross at 70. Grace Thompson was run out at 73. That is four wickets for 12 runs, and Welsh Fire had gone from 61 for 2 to 73 for 6 with 28 balls of their innings still to come.
Baker’s figures were 2 for 15 off 20, with 12 dots. Deepti’s were better. Between them they bowled 40 of the 100 balls and gave up 28 runs, which is why Annabel Sutherland’s 40 off her 20 barely mattered.
Kemp’s 72 was the only reason there was a total at all
Kemp reached her fifty off 34 balls and finished unbeaten on 72 from 45, with six fours and three sixes. She put on 35 with Niamh Holland for the seventh wicket, which took Welsh Fire from 73 to 108 and turned a humiliation into a defendable-looking score. Deepti then bowled Holland, and Rhianna Southby was run out for one with a ball of the innings left.
Two run-outs in an innings of 121 tells its own story. Both came from Sutherland’s arm, and both came at the point where Welsh Fire were trying to manufacture the acceleration that Kemp alone could not provide.
Litchfield made the chase a formality
Bryony Smith went for a duck off the third ball, caught by Thompson off Grace Potts, and that was the last thing that went right for Welsh Fire. Phoebe Litchfield hit 55 off 25 balls, reaching fifty off 22 with six fours and three sixes, and by the time Wareham had her caught at 91 the required rate had collapsed to nothing.
Lauren Winfield-Hill made 17 and Annabel Sutherland 28, and although Welsh Fire kept taking wickets either side of the hundred, Sophia Smale finishing with 2 for 23, the result stopped being in doubt somewhere around the halfway mark. Sunrisers reached 100 inside 55 balls and finished on 122 for 4 with 26 of their hundred unused, Dani Gibson and Jess Jonassen seeing it home. Deepti did not need to bat.
Where it leaves both sides
Sunrisers and Welsh Fire had arrived at Headingley on 12 points each from six matches, fourth and fifth. Sunrisers now have 16 from seven and are back in the argument for a top-three finish behind Trent Rockets, who have 24 and have won six of seven. Welsh Fire stay on 12 and are running out of matches to make up the difference.
For an Indian audience the more interesting line is the one at the bottom of the Sunrisers bowling card. India open their Women’s T20 Asia Cup campaign against Thailand in Dubai on 30 August, three weeks away, and their senior off-spinning allrounder has just returned the most economical figures of the match by some distance, on a day when the most expensive bowler in the innings went at two runs a ball. Jemimah Rodrigues is already out of the Hundred with a hamstring problem and has been reported as a doubt for the Asia Cup itself. India will take Deepti arriving in Dubai in this sort of touch.