Alex Hales leads Trent Rockets to a Hundred opening win as they kick off their campaign with a six-wicket win over Birmingham Phoenix
Trent Rockets beat Birmingham Phoenix in their 100th campaign opener
Alex Hales led the way with 58 from 41 balls as they rode to victory
Colin Munro and Joe Root Collaborations Saw Rockets Fly Past Phoenix
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Trent Rockets started their Hundred campaign with a six wicket win over Birmingham Phoenix in front of a packed Trent Bridge.
Birmingham beat their Midlands rivals home and away in the first season but were well beaten on this occasion as Alex Hales led the way with 58 from 41 balls.
He shared partnerships of 52 out of 33 with Colin Munro (36 out of 22) and 79 out of 54 with Joe Root, ending at 34 and not 26 balls when skipper Lewis Gregory hit the winning line with three balls left.
Joe Root (L) and Alex Hales led the way for the Trent Rockets on Saturday afternoon
Liam Livingstone hit five sixes in his 28-ball 47 and Moeen Ali three in his 21-ball 35 for the Phoenix, but with four Rockets bowlers allowing 1.2 runs per ball or less, Daniel Sams took three for 24, their 143 out of 100 balls always looked chaseable even on a slow throw.
Deployed, Phoenix lost to Will Smeed from Ball 12, but Moeen turned a modest power play into a decent one with back-to-back sixes on the ground from Matt Carter.
Ali looked in the mood as he beat Rashid Khan for one more max as he and Miles Hammond – a late stand-in after Australia’s Matthew Wade scratched due to illness – added 53 out of 31 before Ali singled out Rashid in the deep center of the wicket.
A couple of chances for Tom Kohler-Cadmore went begging, the biggest gave Livingstone a breakout on eight when he messed up a punch chance on Samit Patel, but two wickets in four balls by the veteran left arm spinner saw Hammond fall for 28 out of 19 via a nice catch in the deep end by Hales and new man Dan Mousley who was caught halfway through.
Hales led the way with 58 from 41 balls against their midfield rivals on a packed Trent Bridge
Chris Benjamin also went cheap and as Phoenix had to find something, Livingstone provided it with three sixes in a row over the leg side of Rashid, whose 20 balls cost an embarrassing 39 runs.
But left-arm sailor Luke Wood allowed just seven runs in straight sets on death, between which Livingstone struck out a long time to give Sams a big wicket from his last ball.
Dawid Malan perished on the fifth ball to one that slipped under his bat as the Rockets started their chase, but 29 out of 10 balls – 24 to Munro including back-to-back sixes from Graeme van Buuren’s left arm spin – had them up front at 47 for one from 25.
Colin Munro (pictured) formed a formidable partnership with Hales against their rivals
As the field expanded, the scoring rate slowed. Munro, eager not to be tied up, paid the price when an upper rim of Livingstone looped to his short fine leg to watch him fall from ball 38. Hales drove ball 40 to the fence, but the next 25 failed to give up a boundary.
Hales corrected that with two sixes over Van Buuren’s wide long-on, even though the first was technically a drop on the rope as Hammond pulled it over the rope, bringing the goal to 39 from 30 balls, with the next two sets by Imran Tahir and Moeen are leaking 21 more.
A four to deep drawn midwicket brought Hales to his first fifty in this format and although he was killed in a precipitous return from Tom Helm, who also took Kohler-Cadmore’s wicket on death, he had ultimately made the task a straightforward one. a.