Three teams finished on 20 points, and the Hundred eliminator is what is left of it

Three teams finished the men’s Hundred league stage on 20 points, and net run rate sorted them out. Manchester Super Giants took second, Sunrisers Leeds third, MI London fourth and out. The two who survived meet in the eliminator at the Kia Oval on Friday night, 10.30pm IST, with a place in Sunday’s final against Trent Rockets at stake.

The last time these two played, it was over in 12 overs

Manchester Super Giants beat Sunrisers by ten wickets at Old Trafford on 11 August, with 33 balls to spare, and that is the result that put them above their opponents in the table. Tim Seifert made 80 not out from 40 balls and Paul Walter 44 not out from 28. Sunrisers had won the earlier meeting on 28 July by eight wickets, so the season series is level at one apiece. The second one was lopsided enough that both dressing rooms will still be thinking about it.

Both sides arrive having lost only three of eight. Trent Rockets, who topped the table on 24 points, sit at home this weekend waiting for the winner.

Sunrisers score the runs, Manchester take the wickets

Sunrisers made more runs than anyone in the league stage, 1395 of them, and that includes the 241 for 2 against London Spirit on 4 August, the highest total in the competition’s history. Mitchell Marsh is the tournament’s leading scorer with 406 at a strike rate of 169, with 28 sixes. Ryan Rickelton has 291 at 176, Harry Brook 206 at 187. On the nights their top order connects, nobody in this competition has been able to stop it.

The problem is what happens at the other end. Sunrisers conceded 1239, and Brydon Carse, their leading wicket-taker with 11, has gone at 9.89 an over doing it. Nathan Ellis has been the tidier option at 7.80.

Manchester’s case rests almost entirely on that gap. Gus Atkinson has 12 wickets at 7.81 an over and Josh Tongue nine at 7.93, and a pair of seamers keeping the rate under eight in a tournament this brutal is worth more than it sounds. Seifert’s 322 runs and Jos Buttler’s 278 at nearly 175 give them enough with the bat, without ever looking like the Sunrisers top order in full flow.

Buttler is captaining a side he did not expect to captain

Aiden Markram was named Manchester’s captain before the tournament and left it partway through for personal reasons. Buttler took over, which is his first captaincy job since he stepped down from the England white-ball role after the 2025 Champions Trophy. He has made 278 runs in seven innings, three of them unbeaten, at an average of 69, so the job has not weighed on him.

Zak Crawley leads Sunrisers and has 163 runs at a strike rate of 152, a modest return next to the men below him in the order.

A knockout at somebody else’s ground

There is a small cruelty in the staging. The eliminator is at the Kia Oval, which is MI London’s ground, and MI London are the defending champions who finished on the same 20 points as both these sides and went out on run rate. They will host a knockout they are not playing in.

The women’s eliminator comes first at the same ground, Southern Brave against Sunrisers Leeds, with the Rockets waiting in that final as well. Lord’s has both finals on Sunday, the women at 2.15pm and the men at 6pm local time.

For Indian viewers this is a late one, starting at 10.30pm IST, and it is worth staying up for if the Sunrisers batting turns up. A side that made 241 in a hundred balls ten days ago does not tend to lose quietly.

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