Ollie Pope hits the last ball as MI London edge Southern Brave by three wickets
Will Jacks made 54 and Marcus Stoinis took 3 for 17 in a losing cause, but it took until the final delivery at the Rose Bowl for MI London to get past a Brave side still waiting for a first win.
Jul 28, 2026
MI London needed the last ball of the match to beat Southern Brave at the Rose Bowl, and they got there with three wickets standing after Will Jacks had spent most of the chase making 130 look further away than it was.
Brave made 129 for 9. MI London finished on 130 for 7 off their 100 balls, Ollie Pope slicing the winning runs through backward point off the final delivery. The result moves MI London up to third. Brave have now lost all three of their matches and sit seventh.
Jamie Smith goes early and hard
Sam Curran put Brave in, and Trent Boult had Ben McKinney caught inside the first five balls. What followed was Jamie Smith deciding the powerplay was worth attacking anyway. He made 49 off 26 with six fours and two sixes, and Brave were 80 for 2 at the timeout.
From there it went wrong in the way Hundred innings often do. Smith was caught off Richard Gleeson, Tristan Stubbs made 38 off 31 before holing out, and from 104 for 5 the last four wickets produced 25 runs. Luke Wood was run out off the hundredth ball. Boult went for 15 off his 20 balls and Sam Curran 22 off his, and MI London got through seven bowlers, four of whom took two wickets each.
Brave also picked up a slow over-rate penalty during the chase, which cost them a fielder outside the circle. In a match decided on the final delivery, that is not a small footnote.
Stoinis nearly wins it on his own
The chase should have been straightforward and very nearly was not, because Marcus Stoinis produced the best 20 balls of the night. He had James Vince caught with the score on 17, then Pooran caught behind next ball for a golden duck, and MI London were 17 for 2.
Jacks and Sam Curran put on 50 in 37 balls to steady it. Curran made 30 before Adil Rashid bowled him, and Jacks reached his fifty off 39 balls before Stoinis had him lbw for 54. That left MI London 93 for 4 with 21 balls remaining, and Stoinis with 3 for 17.
Sherfane Rutherford swung it back with 21 off 12, two of them sixes, before Chris Jordan ran him out. Tom Curran was bowled by Nikhil Chaudhary to leave eight needed off seven balls, and Rashid Khan was run out next to bring Boult in with three needed off three. Jofra Archer had bowled his 20 for 20 without a wicket. Jordan went for 34.
Where this leaves both sides
Jacks took the player of the match award, and the innings deserved it even if it was not a comfortable one to watch. He faced 41 of MI London’s 100 balls for his 54, with three fours and two sixes, which is a modest strike rate by the standards of this competition and was still the difference between the sides.
Brave’s problem is the more interesting one. Smith and Stubbs are scoring, the bowling was good enough to take a defence of 129 to the final ball, and they have still lost every game they have played. A crowd of 9,245 watched them get that close and lose again.