After the powerplay, the Rockets’ openers Ben Duckett and Finn Allen had smashed 54 unbroken runs and were up with the rate. The Phoenix needed their Pakistan overseas star Usman Tariq, with his canny round-arm off-breaks, to undo the partnership, inducing a skewed lofted drive from Allen to be caught by Scott Currie at long-on.
Duckett continued to push on, only for Currie, a £210k purchase for Birmingham, to produce a beautiful delivery that jagged off the pitch to find the edge.
With both openers perishing just shy of a half-century, the Rockets lost momentum in the middle third.
Tariq deployed the full range of his impressive repertoire to keep the Rockets in check, with the dismissal of the dangerous Tim David for just 2, well caught behind by Joe Clarke, the key moment as their chase ran aground. Not even the brilliance of Tom Banton, who struck a 32-ball 67 at the death, was enough to get it done, as the Rockets finished 10 runs short.
The Phoenix have compiled a formidable batting line-up that was irrepressible on a true Edgbaston pitch. Clarke and Will Smeed nailed the powerplay, smashing 54 runs off the first 25, and both registered half-centuries, with Clarke’s 33-ball 68, featuring seven fours and four sixes, a stroke-making masterclass.
After his dismissal with the score on 104, Rehan Ahmed stepped up to strike five sixes himself, either side of a brutal cameo from the skipper Donovan Ferreira, whose nine-ball stay included three clubbed maximums to take the innings tally up to 17, the joint highest in the tournament’s history. A mark of the Phoenix’s collective brilliance: Smeed’s strike rate of 182 for his 28-ball 51 was the lowest across their top six.
For the Rockets, only Calvin Harrison was spared, the leg-spinner going for just 27 from his 20, and picking up two wickets. Harrison also struck the final two balls of the Rockets' innings for six to finish with a personal strike rate of 600. It was that kind of match.
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