Birmingham Phoenix Men signed off from their 2026 Hundred campaign with a narrow two-run defeat to MI London at Edgbaston, despite the best efforts of Joe Weatherley, Jordan Thompson and Rehan Ahmed with the bat.
Chasing 158 to win, the Phoenix - who put their visitors into bat - needed five from the final four deliveries of the match when facing down former seamer Trent Boult, but they couldn’t quite pick up one final victory of the competition and succumbed to a seventh defeat.
Visiting Will Jacks threatened to go big early doors, but he was quickly dismissed for just 11 when acrobatically caught by Weatherley off the bowling of Chris Wood.
Opening partner James Vince also looked dangerous in the early stages of MI London’s innings, after they had been put in, but he was soon cleaned up by Tom Helm to half MI’s early tempo.
That was perhaps never more evident than during Rehan’s spell; the leg spinner finished with figures of 2/7 from his 15 balls, having snared MI captain Sam Curran for a duck and then removing the potentially lethal Jason Roy who, after taking time to settle at the crease, had cleared the Hollies stand when facing Saqib Mahmood.
The Phoenix continued to make in-roads in their efforts to dismantle the MI batting order; Mitch Owen held onto a smart catch in the deep to hand Jordan Thompson the valuable wicket of Nicholas Pooran who, on 36, was just beginning to accelerate.
Wood took his second wicket, that of Sikandar Raza, as the Phoenix continued to hold their catches in the outfield, but Tom Curran and Ollie Sykes put on 33 from the final 16 balls of the MI innings to lift them up to 157.
The Phoenix suffered the early loss of their top scorer Joe Clarke, who was bowled by a Raza ball which kept low. Owen took Trent Boult for 14 in three balls, including a handsome heave over cow corner, but Richard Gleeson saw the opener off with his third ball - and then strangled Laurie Evans the very next delivery.
Weatherley and Sean Dickson did oversee a Phoenix revival mid-innings; the pair hit six fours and two sixes between them on their way to a 58-run stand for the fourth wicket, but Sam Curran successfully reviewed an LBW appeal which sent Dickson back to the pavilion.
Captain Donovan Fereira struggled to find fluidity and was caught in the deep while looking to go big with the Phoenix’s required run rate slowly rising in the closing stages of the chase.
When Weatherley departed for 42, held brilliantly in the deep by Nathan Sowter, it appeared as though the prospect of victory was firmly out of the reach of the Phoenix.
Yet the lower order kicked on and all-rounders Thompson and Rehan put on 41 from the final 20 balls of the chase to tee up a dramatic, final ball finish in which they only just came up short.
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