Birmingham Phoenix suffered their second successive defeat in the 2023 Hundred to leave their hopes of progressing into the later stages of this year's competition hanging by a thread. Indeed they may need to win all of their remaining four games to stand a chance of qualifying for the eliminator later in the competition having claimed just two points from their first four games - and they were awarded because of poor weather.
The Welsh Fire, the whipping boys 12 months ago, have been boosted by a strong draft prior to this year's edition starting - that includes Pakistan quicks Shaheen Shah Afridi, who demolished the Birmingham Bears' top order at Trent Bridge in the Blast, and Haris Rauf. They claimed three wickets between them as the Phoenix laboured to just 112 having won the toss, and the visitors chased that tally down with six wickets in hand and 15 balls remaining.
Having watched as the Welsh Fire Women contained their Phoenix counterparts and defended 137 earlier in the day, Moeen Ali decided that the Phoenix would attempt to do similar, but this innings never threatened to get going - aside from Ben Duckett's three success fours off the bowling of Afridi.
It was a pretty lifeless offering in truth, so far removed from the power hitting and big scores that we've become so accustomed to seeing from this adventurous and swashbuckling Phoenix team in the first couple of years of this competition. It was catching practice for the Fire's outfield - Will Smeed and Ben Duckett both got under deliveries, while later in the innings and desperate for runs Dan Mousley and Shadab Khan perished in similar fashion.
Moeen, who nailed one maximum, could've counted himself unfortunate after falling to the brilliance of Roelof Van Der Merwe, who juggled a high catch and eventually claimed it superbly as the ball popped out. Only Liam Livingstone, who scored 28 including one enormous six towards the pavilion, looked like going on, but he was clean bowled by Rauf at a crucial juncture in the innings.
It didn't take a genius to see that 112 looked way short of what the Phoenix would've been after as a par score. Another 25 or 30 runs might've been enough to have made things a bit interesting, but Stephen Eskinazi (43 from 18 balls) ensured a rip roaring powerplay and, to all intents and purposes, the job was practically done.
The Phoenix did spark into life. Benny Howell is their metronome. His figures of 2/16 from his full allocation of 20 balls would impress in any Hundred match, in any game scenario, but it wouldn't be enough here. Moeen himself struck early too when he trapped Luke Wells LBW, but the worry was always in the back of your mind that the Phoenix had left at least 30 runs out there and that would eventually cost them. The Fire helped themselves over the line with temperament and rationale from Tom Abell and David Willey.
