Southern Brave defend 128 for their first win of the Hundred
Southern Brave had lost three in a row and were put in at the Rose Bowl. They made 128 for 8, then took five Birmingham Phoenix wickets for 37 and won by 12 runs.
Jul 31, 2026
Southern Brave went into Thursday night at the Rose Bowl having lost their first three games of the men’s Hundred, and for most of the evening the fourth was heading the same way. Put in by Birmingham Phoenix, they scraped to 128 for 8. Phoenix then reached 52 for 1 and looked comfortable. The middle of their innings fell out anyway, and the Brave had their first win of the summer by 12 runs.
A total nobody was happy with
Marcus Stoinis top scored with 34 from 26 balls, two of which he put into the stands off Scott Currie, one measured at 98 metres. Tom Abell made 22, David Miller 24 and Ben McKinney 18 from nine balls at the top. Beyond that the innings was a series of starts that went nowhere, and wickets kept arriving in ones and twos, which on a used surface stopped anyone from settling into the sort of long set the Hundred is built around.
Rehan Ahmed did most of the damage with three for 25, including Stoinis, caught by Donovan Ferreira. Ben Dwarshuis took two for 18. A crowd of 11,181 watched Brave finish on a total that has not been enough at Southampton very often.
Stoinis said afterwards that batting on a surface nobody had read properly took a bit of conviction, and that having batted on it told him what to do with the ball later.
Five wickets and the chase came apart
Phoenix were 52 for 1 after 47 balls with Will Smeed going well. Then Smeed was caught at long-on off Luke Wood for 35, and his wicket started a run of five for 37 that left Birmingham 89 for 6. Rehan Ahmed hit Chris Jordan for six and holed out to Jofra Archer. Laurie Evans fell to Stoinis after a busy 18. Ferreira, captaining the side, was bowled by Archer playing across the line for 1.
Stoinis was the reason the middle went the way it did. He bowled ten balls in a row for three runs, finished with two for 16, and took the player of the match award.
Smeed’s 35 stayed the highest score in the innings, which tells you enough about the rest of it.
Archer at the death
It was still live with 15 balls to go. Archer bowled his last five for two runs, which left Phoenix needing 29 from 10 and effectively decided it. Sean Dickson hit two sixes off Jordan to keep the arithmetic alive and finished 20 not out, but Wood took two at the back end to close with three for 24, and Adil Rashid ran out Saqib Mahmood. Phoenix ended on 116 for 9.
Wood, Archer, Stoinis and Rashid conceded 79 between them across their allocations. Jordan went for 35. In a chase of 129, that is the whole story.
Where it leaves both sides
The win moves Southern Brave to one from four, seventh in the table, with a net run rate barely on the right side of zero. It is not a good position. It is a better one than losing four in a row, and with five teams bunched level above them, a couple of results changes the picture quickly.
Phoenix are eighth on one win from three, and their net run rate of minus 1.483 is comfortably the worst in the competition. In a group this tight, that number is the thing likely to cost them if it comes down to separating sides at the end.
The women’s game at the same ground earlier in the day went the same way. Southern Brave made 140 for 3, with Maia Bouchier hitting 45 and Lizelle Lee 43, and Birmingham Phoenix could only get to 116 for 5 in reply. That is four wins from four for the Brave women, who sit top, while the Phoenix women are still waiting for their first.