Crawley smashes Superchargers to win over Fire

The Hundred men's competition, Headingley

Welsh Fire 143-9 (100 balls): Bairstow 42 (23); Rashid 2-25

Northern Superchargers 147-2 (89 balls): Crawley 67* (38); Meredith 2-33

Superchargers won by eight wickets

Scorecard. Table

Zak Crawley hit a superb unbeaten 67 from 38 balls as Northern Superchargers raced to an eight-wicket win over Welsh Fire in The Hundred.

Having restricted Fire to 143-9, Superchargers got off to a blistering start as the England opener put on 91 with Dawid Malan, who hit 41 from 29, for the first wicket.

Crawley was given a life on 45 - one of three costly drops from the Fire in the innings - and made the most of his good fortune to reach his highest Hundred score, on his Superchargers debut, to get them over the line with 11 balls to spare.

The hosts might have expected to be chasing more on a good surface at Headingley, especially when Jonny Bairstow and Steve Smith got the Fire off to a rapid start with a 62-run stand.

But Matthew Potts removed Australia's Smith - and Luke Wells next ball - to start the fightback, with spinners Adil Rashid and Imad Wasim also taking two wickets each to keep Fire to a total that proved to insufficient to challenge the hosts.

More to follow.

It's a midlands derby on Friday as Birmingham Phoenix and Trent Rockets get up and running for the year in another double-header at Edgbaston.

The women's game starts at 15:00 BST with the men's match following at 18:30 BST.

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