The Blade Women’s Cup will have a new home after the London Spirit pulled off a shock eight-wicket victory over the Oval Invincibles in Saturday’s Eliminator semi-final. They advance to Sunday’s final against Wales Fire at Lord’s. The Fire reached the Eliminator in 2023, but neither they nor the Spirit have reached the finals in the last three tournaments. “It would be amazing to play in a home final at Lord’s Stadium,” said Australia’s Georgia Redmayne, who scored a half-century and four runs in the win over the Spirit.
Playing in front of a record home crowd of 15,823, with two wins under their belts, the Invincibles started the day with a bang. But after Spirit’s batting, they scored only 113 runs. Alyssa Capsey and Marizanne Kapp fell in the 74th and 77th balls as the Spirit took five wickets in the last 14 balls. In reply, Kapp caught Meg Lanning in the 28th over, but a 74-run partnership from 51 balls between Redmayne and Heather Knight saw the Spirit hit home with 9 balls to spare. Knight initially played a supporting role but remained unbeaten on 36 off 23 balls. He hit a particularly fine six to bowl Madi Villiers in an innings that pleased England coach John Lewis just six weeks before the T20 World Cup.
In response to questions about Redmayne and Knight, Invincibles captain Lauren Winfield-Hill, who dropped Redmayne both times in Game 19, blamed sloppy fielding under pressure for the loss. “In exciting, low-scoring games, it costs a lot.”If the Invincibles were able to refer to the decision, Redmayne burned a review for Knight, although she was overtaken by Ryana MacDonald-Gay in the 46th. Sophia Smail, 19, a left-arm spinner for the winning Invincibles, had to leave the court with three balls remaining after hitting her head while diving to play a ball in the third set. “He’s got a good head, but a broken heart,” Winfield-Hill said. Capsey, who only played second in this year’s competition, needed to take the lead and was unable to stem the flow of runs from Knight and Redmayne.
Earlier, the partnership of Kapp and 45 looked like they might take the game away from new runners-up London Spirit, but the pair quickly fell apart. Kapp sent a shot to Lanning in the deep and the Capsies ended up handing Dani Gibson a wicket on the plate. Dani Gibson found the ball a mile wide of the stumps and hit it to the wicket, but not before scoring 30 runs. . He finished as the Invincibles’ top scorer. Gibson, playing with a heavily bandaged knee, conceded 16 runs in the first innings, three of which were wides, and squandered two opportunities provided by the Capsies at deep midwicket.
She also punished Laura Harris, who ended a disappointing three weeks, with a seven-ball, 16-run cameo from Chamari Atapattu, including a huge six against the England seamer at deep midwicket. But the Spirit turned things around in the last 10 balls and Gibson eventually had two return catches to send her side to her first women’s final hundred.
