Australian batswoman Georgia Redmayne scored an unbeaten half-century to help her side London Spirit defeat London rivals Oval Invincibles and advance to their first final since the competition began.
Spirit have set up a Hundred Women final against Welsh Fire at Lord’s following Saturday’s eight-wicket win with nine balls to spare at the Oval.
The visitors won the toss and elected to bowl. Captain Lauren Winfield-Hill hit three boundaries off Danielle Gibson in the second set to take the Invincibles to 0-21 after 10 balls before Charlie Dean trapped fellow opener Paige Scholfield lbw for five.
With the substitution of Sarah Glenn, Winfield-Hill (17) was back on the pitch and the Invincibles captain hit the ball back to the English leg-spinner with a return catch, making the score 2:37.
Halfway through their innings, the Invincibles had reached 54 wickets without any more to come. The spirit spinners bowled tightly, with Dean, Glenn and Deepti Sharma taking combined figures of 2-25 from 30 balls.
Gibson, who had previously taken down Alice Capsey twice, finally knocked her out of the game for 30 points before Marizanne Kapp fell to Glenn for a run-a-ball of 26 points.
Dean then combined twice with Gibson in deep to dismiss Mady Villiers (three) and Australia’s Laura Harris (16) to finish with a score of 3-24, while Gibson’s full-length heroics to nab Villiers could prove to be one of the best catches of the tournament.
Eva Gray returned for the last five, dismissing Ryana MacDonald-Gay with the first ball and leaving Sophia Smale (one) batting silently as the Invincibles ended their innings at 9-113.
Chasing 114 points to win, left-handed opener Redmayne made 53 points from 47 balls, supported by captain Heather Knight, who scored an excellent 36 points.
The Spirit trailed 33-0 after the power play, after former Australian captain Meg Lanning converted 21 from 14 metres and both she and Redmayne survived difficult chances from Villiers and Harris.
Kapp returned to the attack, trapping Lanning behind for 22, and another Australian star, Amanda-Jade Wellington, stumped Cordelia Griffith (one) to leave the Spirit at 2-42 after 40 when Knight came to bat.
From then on, the Spirit cruised effortlessly toward its goal, with Redmayne and Knight achieving an unbroken score of 74.
Wicketkeeper Redmayne, 30, who also plays for the national team, spoke of a “special” moment when he reached the final.
The New South Wales-born player said: “This is really something special. We went into this game in a really good mood.”
“Oval were probably superior to us in the games we played against them before.
“We knew that if we did the simple things right, we had the team, we could win the game and go to the final at Lord’s at home, which will be incredible.”
Commenting on her innings, she added: “It’s nice to know what intention you have to go into it with.
“Sometimes when you’re facing really good bowling up front, you can get a bit caught up in it, but it helps if you’ve held (the wicket) for a hundred balls beforehand.”
