Spirit hammer winless Fire to go top of men's table

London Spirit sent Welsh Fire crashing to a sixth defeat in six as they ran out comfortable 17-run winners on Wednesday night at Lord's, a victory that takes them top of the table with two games to play. Story of the match

Dan Lawrence put in a superb all-round display for the Spirit, smashing three sixes in his 43 off 26 deliveries with the bat, before then taking 4-20 with his 20 balls of off-spin.

Lawrence's batting fireworks, along with handy contributions from Adam Rossington (32 off 20) and Ben McDermott (32 off 23) and some late hitting by Kieron Pollard (25no off 17) helped the hosts up to 156-6 batting first.

In reply, the Fire's top order once again faltered, with Joe Clarke (9) the first to depart, to Jordan Thompson (1-38), before Lawrence ran through captain Josh Cobb (3), Jacob Bethell (10) and David Miller (5).

Ben Duckett (34 off 19) briefly gave the visitors hope, smashing three fours and two sixes in his enterprising cameo at the crease, before he was bowled, Lawrence's fourth victim.

Dwaine Pretorius (23 off 17) cleared the ropes twice, as did Leus du Plooy (30 off 18) and Matt Critchley (21 off 7) as the Fire's lower order at least provided some entertainment for the Lord's crowd - even if the game itself was long since lost, a sixth straight defeat.

Chris Wood (4-28) came on and spoilt the fun, taking the wickets of all three, along with Ish Sodhi (1), to wrap up a convincing Spirit victory.

They now join Trent Rockets on five wins from six games, needing one more to guarantee themselves a play-off place.

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