Fire pick up first win and eliminate Phoenix
- BBC News
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Would you believe it? - Fires Jonassen hits four sixes in a row
The Hundred womens competition, Edgbaston
Welsh Fire 150-3 (100 balls): Dunkley 53 (43), Jonassen 44 (17); Schutt 2-11
Birmingham Phoenix 114-9 (100 balls): Perry 55 (43); Ismail 3-16
Fire won by 36 runs
Welsh Fire ended Birmingham Phoenixs slim hopes of reaching The Hundred womens knockout stages and picked up their first win of the season with a 36-run triumph at Edgbaston.
After losing four of their opening five matches, Phoenix needed to win their three remaining games and have a number of other results go their way to bridge the 12-point gap to the top three but fell short in their chase of 151, despite a half-century from captain Ellyse Perry.
Phoenix were reduced to 5-2 after six deliveries, Shabnim Ismail, who claimed 3-16 overall, bowling Emma Lamb and trapping Marie Kelly lbw.
A 56-run stand between Perry and Georgia Voll briefly kept the hosts in the contest but two wickets in two balls swung momentum back in Welsh Fires favour and Phoenixs failure to build any other meaningful partnerships prevented them from mounting a serious chase.
Perry, who scored 55 off 43 balls, was eventually dismissed by Ismail in the penultimate set, while Jess Jonassen picked up 3-24.
Sophia Dunkley scored 53 runs off 43 balls and shared a 71-run second-wicket stand with Hayley Matthews to lay the foundations for already-eliminated Fire.
All-rounder Jonassen then smashed 44 runs off 17 balls, including three fours and four sixes, to help Fire post 150-3 - their highest score of the season.
Jess Jonassen and Hayley Matthews shared a 50-run third-wicket partnership off 26 balls
Runs have not flowed for Welsh Fire this season. Prior to this match, last years finalists had only passed 120 once in five innings, twice being dismissed for under 100, and top-order batters Matthews and Beaumont had scored just 65 and 59 runs, respectively.
The one bright spark for Fire has been Dunkley, who has now passed 30 in four of her six innings.
After taking seven balls to reach two, the opener burst into life against Perry, dispatching the Phoenix skipper for three boundaries in four deliveries and later scoring the only six of her innings against the Australia all-rounder.
After she was bowled by Hannah Baker, Phoenix should have had two wickets in two balls but Amy Jones missed a crucial opportunity to stump Jonassen for a duck.
Heading into the final 10 deliveries with her side 122-2, Jonassen smashed Baker for four consecutive sixes before being caught in the deep by Marie Kelly as she attempted to bring up her fifty with another boundary.
But the damage was done and her late blitz took the game away from Phoenix.
It is another four-day game on Saturday with double-headers seeing Northern Superchargers host Oval Invincibles (11:00 and 14:30 BST) and London Spirit face Southern Brave (14:30 and 18:00 BST).
There will be ball-by-ball radio commentary on every game on BBC Sounds.
Spirit v Brave are also BBC TV games with the womens game on BBC iPlayer and the mens game on BBC Two and iPlayer.
