The women’s team got off to a great start in The Hundred, with an opening fixture win over the Birmingham Phoenix. Deandra Dottin was the pick of the bowlers, taking two wickets from her 20-ball spell. Freya Davies also impressed with her delivery to dismiss Shafali Verma. They eventually restricted the Phoenix to 128 runs in the first innings.

Naomi Dattani, captain Heather Knight and Deepti Sharma all put in a good performance with the bat and helped the Spirit to a first win by three wickets. 

The second match against the Oval Invincibles got off to a tough start as the Invincibles batted first, setting 133 for the Spirit to win. Alice Capsey’s 59 off 41 balls set the away side on their way in the London derby with Naomi Dattani taking 2 wickets for the Spirit in her 15-balls. 

The run chase was difficult and the top order struggled from the beginning. However, captain Knight started a fight back, tallying up 40 runs from a quick 29 balls. Danielle Gibson also offered some hope with 30 runs from 13 balls but it wasn’t enough as the Spirit fell short by 15 runs.

They then faced the Trent Rockets back at Lord’s in a very high-scoring match. The away side opened the batting where Rachel Priest set the tone for the game with a massive 76 runs off 42 runs. Nat Sciver also added a quick 32 runs in a frustrating day for the bowlers. They set a big 151 runs on the board going into the second innings. 

Knight and Dottin added 31 and 29 to the score respectively but the home side could only get themselves to 133, losing by 18 runs.

In their most recent match against the Southern Brave, the Spirit struggled to put a score on the board when batting first. Tammy Beaumont top scored with 34 runs but the innings ended with being bowled out for 93 runs. 

The Brave managed to chase it down in 92 balls with 7 wickets remaining. Stafanie Taylor top scored with 29 runs with Deepti Sharma taking 2 wickets for the Spirit. All of these leaves the Spirit with one win from four and sitting in 7th, however the table is very open and a win against 2nd placed side Northern Superchargers could put them back into the top 3 battle.

As for the men’s side, it has been just as tough for the Lord’s based outfit. 

In the first match against the Birmingham Phoenix, Zak Crawley’s 64 from 40 put the Spirit in a good position and set a score of 144 in the first innings. 

Mohammad Amir and Blake Cullen both took 2 wickets in the second innings but it wasn’t enough as the Phoenix chased down the score set with 3 balls and 3 wickets to spare. 

Frustratingly, the second match between the Oval Invincibles and London Spirit never got underway as the weather decided to interfere but it gave the Spirit a first point on the board. 

In the third match against the Trent Rockets, it was a familiar story for the Spirit. The home side set a score of 123, D’arcy Short hitting a huge 69 from 47 balls. 

In the second innings, there was a struggle for one batter to stay and hit a big score. Roelof van der Merwe hit a top score of 25 off 18 balls late into the game to give them some hope but it wasn’t enough as they fell 7 runs short. 

In the fourth match against the Southern Brave, it went down to the wire. The Brave set a score of 145 runs with Alex Davies hitting 50, but Blake Cullen’s 2 wickets made him pick of the bowlers. 

Openers Adam Rossington and Josh Inglis got 100 runs between them but they were unable to chase down the remaining runs and fell 5 runs short of winning come the end. 

At the halfway stage, the Spirit men are still searching for a first win but with it being such a tightly packed table, a win could suddenly put them back into a battle for the Eliminators.