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Meredith finished with a spell of 4/9 in his team’s win © Getty
Riley Meredith, Chris Green and David Payne combined to pick up all ten wickets as Welsh Fire finally opened their account with a 25-run win over Manchester Originals. Unlike the last-ball thriller in the first game on Wednesday (August 13), this match saw Originals surrender in meek fashion immediately after Jos Buttler fell following a fighting fifty.
Meredith struck very early in the run chase by picking up both the openers in the space of three deliveries. For the first dismissal though, he had Green to thank for as he came up with a stunning catch to get rid of Phil Salt. Given the start, Meredith continued to bowl five more deliveries and the move paid off as he picked up another big wicket. Mark Chapman kept getting beaten and eventually edged one to first slip as Originals were reduced to 14/3 and desperately needed a rebuild.
Heinrich Klaasen then joined forces with Buttler to resurrect the innings with the Englishman counter punching with four boundaries. With a nice partnership building, Welsh Fire struck again around the halfway mark as Klaasen departed before he could make an impact. The responsibility was then on Buttler’s shoulders to steer the ship and he responded in style with a six. One more six, this time off Green, helped him bring up his fifty and he slowly started finding support at the other end too with Lewis Gregory starting to find the boundary.
With 35 needed off 20, this game was heading towards the batting side before Buttler found the fielder at deep midwicket for a delivery that he should have probably put away. That gave the bowling side the opening they needed as Green also removed Gregory. Payne then ran through that lower order by picking three wickets in the space of six deliveries as the game rapidly came to a close. Meredith, who had set things up right at the start, came back to provide the finishing touches and end up with a four-fer.
Earlier in the evening, Welsh Fire were handed a massive blow after being asked to bat with their top-scorer Jonny Bairstow edging one to first slip. Steve Smith did the bulk of the scoring in that initial period but he also ended up consuming deliveries. Josh Tongue then bowled a well disguised slower delivery to deceive the Australian veteran who got a thin top edge that was pouched by the keeper with ease. Tom Kohler-Cadmore hit a couple of sixes and Tom Abell got a start as well but none of them could really kick on for a big score.
With both set batters departing, Welsh Fire needed new heroes at the death to find the boundary. Unfortunately, Saif Zaib fell after hitting back-to-back boundaries. Eventually, it came down to Green who cleared the ropes twice and hit a boundary too to add some valuable runs at the death. Even though Scott Currie closed out the innings in excellent fashion, it didn’t matter much in the end as Green’s little cameo pushed the total beyond 130 which proved to be more than enough on the night.
Brief scores: Welsh Fire 137/8 in 100 balls (Tom Kohler-Cadmore 26; Scott Currie 3/21, Josh Tongue 3/25) beat Manchester Originals 112 in 97 balls (Jos Buttler 57; Riley Meredith 4/9, David Payne 3/14) by 25 runs
© Cricbuzz
